I learn the oddest things reading on this forum. Will remember strawberry-flavored marshmallows.
Better’n bacon? (Well, if I were to be so generous as to offer bacon to such…)
This thread is hilarious, for the most part. I only have one word… Dog!
When I bought my farm there were renters in the house, no dogs. There was at that time a row of Fir trees about 100’ away across the lawn. Coons lived there.
We moved in with our pound mut dog. The nights were not quiet for weeks but the coons moved out! Also so did the Possums and Rats. Chipmunks just moved further up the trees and proceeded to scold my dog from a distance.
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Trapped two big males in the last 3 days. A normal year totals ~12.
I use feed corn, but they’ll eat anything.
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I have no doubt that dogs are the perfect solution. But unfortunately not always possible to have a dog.
Raccoons are nocturnal feeders. You’d have to be comfortable leaving your dog out all night, and the dog would have to not sleep except during the day.
Coyotes are also active at night. I’m no expert on interactions between dogs and coyotes but I know people whose pet dogs have been killed by coyotes. So the strategy seems risky.
And that’s not to mention rabies, which is common in raccoons. Years ago I had a rabid raccoon die in my back yard. I think a dog that sunk its teeth into a rabid raccoon would become infected.
I use a .22LR pistol with a silencer. I’m semi-urban and have close neighbors, so try and keep things low key. I use .22 standard velocity ammo. Does not kill as fast, but quieter than .22 Stingers which do better at killing fast.
Actually, I don’t even use this much anymore. I went to paw traps and shoot the coon in the head with a .177 pellet gun from the deck. Kills just about as fast as a .22 L.R. Standard Velo round. Which is about 20 seconds of kicking.
I found out about the pellet gun by accident. I was upstairs and coon was making a mess on the grass before I put in rocks in that area. I figured I’d give him a pellet to relax it some until I went down to shoot it with the .22. I had never killed a coon in a paw trap before, so was also looking to slow it down before going downstairs. I shot it in the back of the head with the .177 pellet rifle and it died within 20 seconds or so. I was amazed a spring gun would kill the coon, but it did.
Why don’t I use a .22 or .25 pellet gun? Because all I got a .177 pellet gun. I plan to get a better one someday, but this works fine for now.
Here is a tip with killing coons in a cage…
Thump them in the body first, then a shot to the head. Coons don’t like looking down a gun barrel and bob and weave a lot. Thumping them in the body slows them down to get the head shot. Some big, bad coons don’t even blink when you give them a body shot with a .22. They just get mad and growl. So, give then a second injection before the head shot. Took me tons of reimagined coons to figure this out.
Last coon shredded my stump with paw traps. I need to tar whole stump. Top had tarlike stump sealer, but coon worked it over and took bark off.
Nice work!
Is it a trail camera? Does it do movies? What is the make of the camera?
Yes it is a trail camera. These images are screen captures from videos taken last night. It is solor powered with battery back up and works really well, especially for the price. The make is a Victure HC600 Trail Camera.
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Good advice. I use a havahart followed by a .177 pellet gun. That’s great unless the raccoon manages to bust out of the trap, which sometimes happens. I’ve been amazed how much punishment a raccoon can take. I’ve given up on heart / lung shots. Like you, it’s back of the head. But I hadn’t thought of using a body shot to slow the animal down before the head shot.
I here you. Both you and Bdav have legitimate concerns.
I have grown up with dogs being work / guard dogs for the homestead so having a farm was a natural fit for a working dog. The only problem I have run into and the reason why I no longer have dog(s) is that I find myself at an older age and no longer willing to go through the heartache of watching yet another companion pass after 12-15 years of faithful companionship.
Lucky, I think my all time favorite dog, RIP, was an excellent guard dog of the home area. She would bark and run off into the woods after whatever she thought was a threat to the family. That would regularly include Coyotes which are plentiful here as well as the ocasional bear.
I have noticed a marked increase in close encounters with wildlife that I dont want to have close to the house in the 2 years its been since I dont have any dogs. Last year I was completely surprised to come face to face with a large black bear prowling my front porch. I walked out my front door to walk down and open greenhouse vents, early in the morning and there he/she was literally not more than 2 or 3 feet in front of me. We surprised each other, I was only half out the door so backed back in and slammed the door! The bear took off before I even got the door shut. This definitely wouldn’t
have happened had lucky been around.
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Yesterday morning at the base of one of my pear trees. Second one there is the past week. Eventually I’ll relocate the whole litter, then momma…
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Almost two weeks ago I set out some dog proof traps within 100 yards of my orchard and and caught 7 coons, two possums, and a skunk. Have not got a pic of one since then. Seen one set of coon tracks and he turned off before the orchard. I have no remorse killing a coon. They kill everything they are big enough to handle. They eat almost all the turkey eggs. I found a nest of new born rabbits under a cedar tree. Put a trail camera on them just to see what the mother was doing and a coon ate all the babies two nights later. I kill between 40 and 80 coons a year.
You can also use a trappers catch pole to choke them out when caught in a foot hold trap. Do not ever relocate a coon. You are just making a problem for someone else - or worse yet - causing the coon to starve to death
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Wow, thats a lot of coons! The most Ive ever had a problem with in these parts is 2 or 3. The dog just moves them on.
Biggest smaller problem here is rabbits, as far as shere numbers. However the local feral cats do a pretty good job on them. I once sat, with a beer, on my porch and watched the cat, one by one, haul off an entire nest of rabbits. Took him about 2 min. round trip.per rabbit. 9 total.
Yes relocation can be tricky. One time here, the Fish and Wildlife people trapped and relocated a black bear to over 70 miles away, across 2 major rivers, several highways, a whole lot of state and private forest land, only to have the bear return 2 weeks later.
The bear was thoroughly enamored with my Asian Pears.
Raccoons are so destructive! Many areas they are close to the top of the food chain and over populated.
I dont know how any turtle eggs around here survive. My whole orchard is dug up with littered turtle egg shells everywhere from racoons. They were out here in the daylight 30 yards from me digging away.
I don’t have much fruiting yet in my young orchard, but I forsee a lot of issues in my future.
I know nature has to take its coarse, but raccoons are just plain gluttons.
Years ago I raised homing pigeons, a few times I would get a raccoon that would climb the side of the barn up to the peak and get through the pigeon hole, it would eat 1 or 2 pigeons and kill all of the others that it could catch. There would be dead pigeons everywhere with their heads chewed off.
We’ve screwed with Nature. No doubt there used to be a predator that would keep raccoon numbers in check but we’ve eliminated that predator. Now we’re paying the price. I’ll kill every raccoon I trap.
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Fully agree with everything that your saying @jrd51, we have messed up that balance of nature, and now we are paying the price.
Of course the irony is that our fruits trees weren’t native here to begin with. Yes, we’ve missed with nature, by planting a smorgasbord for all the herbivores and omnivores! While it is no doubt illegal to transport fur-bearing animals, I take them into the woods at the nearby nature preserve to release them (far from residences).