Where did they come from?

[greymane]

Perhaps someone can help with this. Last night I walked onto the back deck and found a dead baby raccoon on the deck. The back yard is fenced and the dogs have run of the yard and the deck. Immediately put the house on lockdown and I did not know where "mamma" may be. My son and I did a very thorough search. No sign of mamma, but we did find another baby raccoon just off the deck. I was super vigilant last night. No unusual sounds. No unusual response from the dogs. Any ideas? The babies were pretty small (smaller than our smallest Jack Russell).

 

[mangled]

I'd say they were most likely orphaned. The only times we have seen baby raccoon is when they've had no mother. Is it possible they wandered into your fenced area and the dogs ran them down?


Blessings-
Em

 

[greymane]

No signs of struggle. No blood. They looked freshly dead (but no signs of injury). The dogs can't get out of the fence, though. (Molly can get under the deck, but can't get out from there.)

 

[Kyle241]

Likely orphaned as already stated. As for why it's dead, could be starvation, could be poison. There are a lot of people out our way that use poisons for rats, etc. Only a post mortem/toxicology would confirm poison. As you have pups, I doubt you put out mice or rat poison, do any of your neighbours?

 

[greymane]

Don't know about the poison, but it is a long walk from the neighbors for these little guys.

Based on what I found online, I am pretty sure they were not more than a month old. They were probably only about 8-10 inches long.