Trap and release Raccoons

[/pine]

So don't plant corn? Drawing vermin to food for a reason, yes, and not just shooting everything that shows up. "A rat is a rat." etc. I'll agree to disagree as long as I think that coon damage 'symptoms' ARE the problem.

Raccoons aren't house-pets to some of us. If they didn't come to feeders they'd come to your house or barn. They raid nests and trash my barn. I kill flies and ants too.

It's too bad animals seeking food have to be killed just because they are smarter than you are...

 

[EddieWalker]

I read if your strategy is the kill raccoons, you will still loose the battle. Too many of them out in the forest. We have 6 ft dia fences around each tree and plan to place a hot wire at the top of each.

Any other tricks to keep raccoons out?

This is true if somebody was going to try and kill off "all" the racoons in their area, but since that's not possible, killing of the problem ones is very doable. Just like people, some will cause problems, others will behave and never come close to your home.

When we first got chickens and guineas, we locked up all the chickens in a coop for the night, but the guineas would fly up into a tree. This worked fine until we started losing one a night. We figured that a raccoon was climbing the tree ever night and killing them one at a time. We ran three rows of hot wire around the pasture and since then, we have not lost a single bird to racoons or coyotes. Hawks have gotten a couple, but we haven't figured out how to stop that, so it's just part of it. We have a three rail fence around the pasture and the hot wires are between the boards. First one is at the bottom, then between the bottom board and the second board, and the top wire is at the very top of the fence to keep the horses off of it.

We are now doing the same thing around our back yard where our dogs are. They kill a few racoons every year, plus whatever else gets in there. Eventually one of them might get hurt, or a skunk might get in there, so our goal is to keep everything out. Why they go in there with four big Akita's is a mystery that never ends well for the invaders. Now I just need a way to keep snakes out!!!!

 

[MossRoad]

Look fellas... in all seriousness, I'm pro-hunting, pro-trapping, pro-fishing, pro-farming, etc... It just makes little to no sense to me to put out food to attract animals that you do like, and then shoot the ones that you don't like. If you were protecting a crop from predation, I can understand that. If you were baiting animals to shoot them for their fur, I can understand that. If you're trapping animals for fur, food, whatever, I can understand that. Just dropping food on the ground, and shooting the animals that you don't like, and wasting that resource, and creating all the problems associated with feeding wildlife... that's poor stewardship. And deep-down, you all know that.

There's better solutions that would allow you to harvest or observe nice deer, turkeys, quail, rabbits, ducks, whatever you're into, than feeding from feeders, and at the same time, lowering the racoon population. If you have no room to plant food for wildlife, then you have no wildlife habitat on your place, either. So what's the reason for feeding them, if there's no place for them to live? I think it would be a lot more rewarding to build up and/or enhance wildlife habitat and harvest or observe from that than it would be from feeders and all the problems associated with them. Also, in concentrating deer around feeders, you raise the risk of spreading disease to the very animals you are feeding, such as CWD, bovine TB, acidic conditions in their gut, aflatoxins, and other infectious diseases . That's why so many states are discouraging, or banning altogether, the feeding of deer.

Here's some links. Read and understand the negatives of feeding deer.

https://www.alabamawildlife.org/uploadedFiles/Deer Management Issues.pdf

Chronic Wasting Disease
https://www.in.gov/dnr/fishwild/files/fw-feeding_deer.pdf
Meeting on fatal deer disease set in Corydon | Local News | dailyiowegian.com

 

[MossRoad]

...Now I just need a way to keep snakes out!!!!

You figure that out, and you'll retire a rich man! :thumbsup:

Other than an electrified moat, I got nothin.

 

[bcp]

A snake has never been known to cross a rope made of unicorn hair.

Bruce

 

[MossRoad]

A snake has never been known to cross a rope made of unicorn hair.

Bruce

Or a henway.

 

[ovrszd]

We had packs of dogs running around our place some even being aggressive so I made a live trap & to my surprise caught not only dogs but a few raccoons and a bob cat . Dogs went to the dog catcher and wild animals I open the gate and let them go. None of the wild animals have ever been a problem for us.View attachment 543057

Did you stick your finger thru the cage Bill??? My BIL caught a baby Bobcat about the size of your hand in a live trap. He called me so me and the boys went to take a look. This was several years ago when they were rare here. That little beggar looked completely cute and harmless until my BIL put on a welding glove and tried to catch it in the cage. It was a complete metamorphosis!!!!!!

 

[ovrszd]

..or asteroids...



Bruce

Or both.

 

[MossRoad]

Someone is proposing starting a bobcat hunting season here in Indiana. Apparently they are making a comeback. But no one has done any studies as to how many there are yet, etc... so that should probably be done before opening up a season, setting limits, quotas, etc...

 

[/pine]

Someone is proposing starting a bobcat hunting season here in Indiana. Apparently they are making a comeback. But no one has done any studies as to how many there are yet, etc... so that should probably be done before opening up a season, setting limits, quotas, etc...

IMO, Both state and federal wildlife services do a very good job of wildlife management...I know the money I spend on hunting and fishing licenses is well spent...maybe some of the best management in all of government at both state and federal levels...

Also IMO...native wildlife rules and we humans should do what we can to coexist...But non native species is another animal (NPI) entirely...

The idiotic practice of live trapping (non native) feral cats, neutering and spaying them and then re-releasing them back into the environment has got to border on one of the stupidest things I've ever heard of considering the popularity of the practice...
Non native feral cats kill literally billions of native song birds and other native wildlife species every year...

IMO ALL non native feral cats should be destroyed...non native feral cats should be treated no differently than the non native constrictors that have decimated native wildlife populations in the Everglades and other wetlands etc...