New Species? Tail-less coons.

[DrRod]

Put Vaseline on the latch. Animals hate to get their paws sticky. And this works great for birds as well. For years, birds would land on the metal cages around our porch lights with the result of significant patches of whitewash on our porch. One smear of Vaseline on the wires of the cages and they have never returned.

 

[tallyho8]

I set the trap again tonight and also set a coyote trap close by. I have my game camera set on 60 second video so I am hoping to see how one keeps letting the other one out of the trap. If I can get it on video it should be a winner on Youtube.

 

[MossRoad]

I moved my trap to a new location and disguised it with hay and shavings. Last night I caught the coon again and the other coon released him from the trap again.

Now I have to figure out some way to keep a coon on the outside from being able to open the trap. Any ideas?

When we had a raccoon that kept getting out of the trap, it was because he'd leave his tail in the door and it wouldn't latch all the way. 4-5 times he got out. So, my dad wired a brick to the door to give it some more drop force. We got him that night. I felt bad, though, as it had to hurt!

 

[tallyho8]

WOW! UNBELIEVABLE! You have to see this. I set my traps last night and put my game cam on 30 second video instead of 60 second so I have 2 clips to show instead of just one. It's named "Coon escape artist part 1." and then part 2 on Youtube in case my links don't work.

Part 1. http://youtu.be/hC2jk-tl69k
Part 2. http://youtu.be/lVFzoMA01Z4

I sure wish I still had my coon dogs.

I'm starting to feel like Bill Murray in Caddyshack.

 

[dave1949]

Ha! That's a calm and clever racoon.

 

[tallyho8]

Finally, I caught her last night. I ran a wire through the cage from the left side to the right side and tightened it up so that the coon couldn't push the side out to get past the door.

It is a young sow coon that had been nursing her young up until recently so I believe it is the mother of the 2 tailless coons I caught last week. I tried to put a baby near it but she growled and jumped at the baby so if it is hers I imagine it has too much human scent on it now for her to accept it.

I relocated her to a spot far away in the swamps. Now I have to start trying to trap the other one that was with her earlier this week.

 

[RobertBrown]

I would have believed that coon could slip through there if I had not seen it.
You should send that link to the manufacturer. Looks like the Harbor freight model that I have. I suppose I should make some modifications to my own.

 

[Leejohn]

I can understand raccoons with no tails. When I go to town I see alot of guys walking around with short legs. With things as bad as they are, just what we need now no tail and short legs.

 

[bindian]

I caught two young coon in my chicken yard today. They appear to be about 6 weeks old and they were born tail-less.

I'm keeping my eyes out for the mother because I want to see if she is tail-less too. Anyone ever see a coon with no tail before?

And no, they weren't cut off. The rear is perfectly formed and they are too young to have had them cut off and healed perfectly already.

Mama coon accidentally bit the tails off. We had a tailless squirrel around here for a couple of seasons. I named him Bob.
hugs, Brandi

 

[MossRoad]

That's way too big of a trap for a racoon, that's why it was able to squeeze out. Glad you were able to modify it to catch it. They are clever critters. We had one that we "tamed" when it was young. Lots of fun and hey, how cute is that? .... then it hit puberty. Got pretty aggressive searching for food and ended up doing thousands of dollars in damage to our house.