Use the pepper thingy idea. I live in Iowa, and my back yard is an established forest that I have cleared (10-15' in between trees) When we moved in, the guy that built the place hadnt done anything to it. I have cleared it, planted grass, made a (frog) pond and in general, made a nice habitat for racoons. Specially with the dogfood on the deck all the time. Got tired of the dog barking in the middle of the night,would come outside and scare 2-4 coons away from dogfood every other night.
Got to thinking... what eats a coon and what scares a coon? Coons eat with their front hands/paws. Went to local farm store, bought some "tiger piss", spread it around the house. (Dog didnt like it either...went around after i did and pee'd on the corners. Bought some cyanne pepper, hot as i could find, along with the hottest tobasco sauce i could find. Sprinkled the peper around the home, and made a little "secure" area for the dogfood, that the dog couldnt get to, but the coons could, put the dogfood into a bowl(dry food) and poured basco on it, let it sit overnight. That night, doggy didnt bark! Wondered if it was the tiger piss working. Next night, thru the "modified" dogfood around the secured area. Doggy started barking bout 4 am. went outside and saw 2 coons in this area. Could see that they had TRIED to eat the food but were licking and licking their hands trying to get the basco off. Each time they licked, they would sneeze. Was really a pretty funny sight! By the time i got dressed to go let the doggy at them in this area, they were gone. Had them back a couple of nights later and they did the same thing, but havent seen them since. Neighbor says shortly after my dog stopped barking at nights, he had coons trying to get into his birdfeeder. I gave him the tiger piss and he hasnt had anything since.
This was about a year ago. This past start of summer, one sunday morning, neighbor kids were all outside and yelling to me, dog was barking. Went outside and saw one of the coons that had visisted us before. I know it was the same one, cause doggy had gotten ahold of it at one time and broke its tail. This one had a kink in the tail same place. Anyway, this coon was just sitting in yard. I started walking torwards it with a baseball bat. It took off up a tree. Dog kept it up there for awhile while I hauled some dirt with the tractor. Came back up the hill with a loader full of dirt one time and coon had come down, and dog had it cornered again. Again i walked with a bat. Told doggy to "get'em"! Doggy grabbed broken tail, started to fling it about. I couldnt get a good shot without hitting dog. Coon went flying once and went up a tree. There he sat there looking at both of us and frothing at the mouth. Oh, great, this coon gots rabies. Maybe that is why its out and not scared at anything. Stayed up in the tree, pulled doggy away, and went back to dirt hauling. No events with coon the rest of the day. Next week, on a sunday morn again, was down on the "bottoms" getting another load of dirt and doing some work on the bridge, I get off my tractor, lite a smoke, admiring what I have accomplished down here. (various levels and I am on the top one). This coon, SAME ONE starts up out of the creek and starts running at me! i yell at it, it doesnt stop. I jump on the tractor and raise the loader as far as it will go up and advance to this beast! It goes up a tree. I bang the tree with the loader trying to shake it down, but this varmit has got a really good hold. Its still frothing at the mouth. Ok, I have had enough of this thing now. I dont own a gun(various reasons why, to long of a story to go into) so went and got the neighbor, an avaid deer hunter, and we went back down to creek. He had to put 2 shots into this thing to kill it. 1st one knocked it down.
