Words can't describe how angry I am right now.

[wrathsfarm]

You have 2 options.
Catch and release or catch and dispatch. Your state laws will point you to which of these options you should follow.

Not doing one or the other will cost you more birds.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Absolutely do not release it.

Hidey hole” makes me think skunk or one of his kin.

Depending in the size of the hole. I had a mama raccoon drag my giant orpington rooster off his roost and under the barn floor last fall. I'd consider that a hidey hole, but it certainly wasn't like a burrow or tunnel

 

[Lelilamom]

FWIW, We show no mercy to anything that hunts around our coop. Being right next to the barn and subsequently next to the house, if the predator doesn't take a chicken it'll take a cat or our small dog. The only predator that gets a pass are the bald eagles. Unfortunately, they often sit in the tall locust trees right above our coop and I jump up and down yelling at them to leave my birds alone but they just stare at me like I'm a lunatic.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

This morning I noticed my favorite chicken, Rosy, was missing. I looked all over for her, but couldn't find her. I was getting really worried, and my heart sank when I saw a trail of feathers leading to under the shed. I checked there, and I found half of her. A raccoon probably took the other half. But that raccoon made one mistake. He left an open chicken corpse right next to his little hidey-hole. He messed with the most dangerous species on the planet, killed their favorite bird, and then left evidence of where he lives. I'm trying to find the trap right now, and I'm trying to decide if I should release him far away, or have a striped hide decoration on my bedroom wall. I like raccoons, I really do, but this one just made me angrier than I've been in a while. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, a soul for a soul.

I despise raccoons. I kill every one i see, and foxes. The media portrays both as adorable little bandits but they are not. They are rabies, distemper, parvo, mange and internal parasite vectors that kill anything smaller than themselves and usually waste most of the "food".
They not only raid domestic birds but seek out and eat wild turkey eggs and chicks and other wild birds, even songbirds because they climb like cats. They eat other mammals like squirrels babies, even other baby coons. They will attack full grown humans and certainly children and pets. Sometimes unprovoked. They will decimate a crop or garden in 15 minutes flat. What they don't destroy can't be used due to contamination from feces and urine. I never understand why entertainment makes these nuisance rodents out to be so endearing. I say .. do murder!