Raccoons

[darwinslair]

Originally Posted by fortyonenorth

Oh, they work alright. Bait them with a cob of sweet corn and you'll have a raccoon. Problem is, where to re-locate? It's illegal in many areas.

relocate?

I use the trap, and then lead poisoning.

Have to admit, the buggers taste really really good. Every time I do a pot roast in the slow cooker my wife looks at me suspiciously, and asks me if it is raccoon. <laughing> Not that she can tell the difference anyway.

Cut the fat out of them though, or it will be one greasy pot roast.

Tom

[carolyn137]

The raccoons never bothered with my tomatoes when I was growing so many tomato plants at the old family farm, but sweet corn, for sure, along with the skunks who also loved the sweet corn.

Here at my new place there are also raccoons but again, they have never bothered my tomato plants in the backyard. I had to ask Freda to quit putting bird seed in the one feeder on the deck railing b/c this year big momma would clean it out. All the other bird feeders are hanging high up from the metal strip that runs along the inside edge of the 2 ft overhang. And hanging high not just for the raccoons but for the Black Bears as well and only ONE such visit this year.

What's been doing death to my tomato plants this year, but not before, are the woodchucks, groundhogs to some of you.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood, etc, that childhood ditty, and try replacing woodchuck with the word groundhog and it just doesn't make it.

When I moved here I had the young lad up the road from me trapping the raccoons and relocating them and he did way up the road which dead ends at the base of Egg Mt in VT. They came back.

The folks who built this home told me that they had a major oppossum problem but I've been here since 1999 and haven't seen even one.

There is raccoon rabies here, one case confirmed at a place several miles away and up the road from me the sherriff's dept had to shoot one but the report came back negative for rabies.

So two nights ago, I'm sitting in my recliner chair, the sliding door in front of me that fronts onto the deck was open to the screen and all of a sudden I hear this sqeaking squealing noise and sure enough, momma had brought her latest kids to see what was in the feeder on the deck railing. Finding nothing the three little raccettes departed.

I'd know that noise of the wee ones anywhere.

Finally, I do wish the woodchucks would eat more of the taller grass in my backyard since Freda hasn't been able to mow/trim lately, and they do eat the grass and some of the various colored mosses that are also there, actually put there, as well as some decorative low growing Thyme.

No gun here, my brother took all of my father's guns, but then I'm more friendly to critters than my father was who would shoot anything that flew or had four feet, in season of course, but mom wouldn't cook most of it.

A herd of deer here as well, but while they will eat roses and daylilies they haven't eaten any tomatoes here, although they did at two other places where I was growing tomatoes when I moved here.

Thus the story of how Perry's Teasum became Neves Azorean Red.

[Solanum315]

I have experience with raccoon babies (and adults) as well. They are sweet little critters. A friend of the family runs a wildlife rehab and we used to go over there and play with her coons. They really loved shoelaces and would untie our shoes if we let them. They can certainly put a hurting on a dog if they get into a tangle but they are not vicious by nature. Last winter I had to put down a coon that was scuffling with our rat terrier. He was acting very bold but sluggish. Could have been rabies but more likely distemper. Not surprisingly, the rat terrier started it but I ended it. Not a pleasant experience.

[zabby17]

As others have said, raccoons aren't huge ones for devouring tomatoes.
But they can and do damage tomato gardens in some circumstances.

I had a family of them (Mom & seven kits) in my Toronto yard (Toronto is pretty much the raccoon capital of North America; the coons there are thoroughly adapted to urban life---I too have had them come in, eat cat food, and wash up in the water dish, which they also used to wash grapes from my fruit bowl and left the stems beside it). Quite a few tomatoes were munched, torn, tossed, and a few branches of plants were trampled.

I got a Lee Valley motion-activated sprayer when my sweet corn started to tassell, as I KNEW they'd leave me nothing of that. But it sprayed on and off pretty much all night as the teenaged coons took turns getting brave enough to go near it. Eventually the incessant on and off of the sprayer all night got my DH out to investigate; when a coon marched up and started nibbling experimentally on his toe, suddenly DH agreed with me that this was more than a minor nuisance.

We got a hav-a-heart trap and relocated the whole family over a couple of days to a ravine. Not legal.

BUT in my small town where I live now and there is lots more wild and less urbanized racoons, while I've seen coons, even wandering down my street once in a while, and heard them making whoopee in neibhours' trees, they've never done any damage in my garden that I could tell.

Since most remedies are illegal, unpleasant to animal-lovers, or both, AND are generally temporary (if it's a good spot, a new coon family will probably take up residence if you evict the current one), before trying them pre-emptively you might want to wait and see if they cause trouble. They CAN, there's no doubt, but that doesn't mean they WILL in this situation.

If you have no corn, if your garbage and compost are not accessible, they may just want the shelter.

Momma does nest nearby, something they recommend is to persuade her to move on by putting a britght light and even music in the area where she's got her kits, which will probably convince her to move them.

Good luck!

Z