There is plenty of info about raccoons at Houzz - Garden Web but not much here so I’m starting this topic. I’ve got a problem with night time raiders. If you want you can see with this video:
I cut an old garbage can vertically and put it around a pluot tree that will soon have ripening fruit. Maybe it will help or maybe they can climb it. I’ll report if it doesn’t. In addition to shooting and trapping are there any other ideas?
Sorry but that can is just a ladder unless you have mighty small coons. I find they’re suckers for the small marshmallows. About 8 will lure them into a trap. Other than that an electric fence.
I agree with Fruitnut Raccoons hate being shocked so it only takes one time for them to learn. Hook up and electric fence around whatever you are trying to protect and that will do the trick. I have not turned my electric fence on in years. The raccoons and I had a disagreement about corn once and I persuaded them to see my point of view. I heard them using raccoon bad language at about 2 am that night when they found my new fence. They now leave my corn alone.
Is that the same tree in the video as in the Picture? It doesn’t look like it.
The video has weeds and stuff.
It’s a different tree. I’m trying to protect a tree they haven’t attacked yet. Interestingly, when they collected fruit, they had a preference for the fruit in baggies. They must have had prior experience with garbage cans.
Plz update Us with the final result later. I hope it works out for you.
Tony
1/4 cup Golden maldrin fly bait dissolved in a 12oz can of cheap sugared cola. Place in a low sided container where perp/victim can freely access. Repeat in 6 locations around the tree. Use rubber gloves, material is not attractive to any other species. Perps will be found passed within 10-15’ of their ‘snack’. Repeat as needed. Protects corn, fruit, chickens, garbage or most anything raccoons like.
3’ feet of roofing coil starting a foot above the ground, stapled around the trunk as a cylinder is fool proof for coons, but I suspect your garbage “can” can also work if they can’t use the crack in some way to claw their way up. They need to penetrate the surface a bit with their claws to pull up their weight when they climb and hard plastic can work- as long as they can’t reach the lip of the can by standing up on their hind legs, or figure out a way to piggy back up there (don’t laugh, a customer just saw a raccoon on the back of another to get up a tree).
I use the roofing coil on 100’s of trees at scores of sites every season and no raccoon has ever gotten up one. Sometimes they are installed after coons have begun pilfering the fruit and the pilfering always instantly stops. It usually also works for squirrels if you paint the metal with a mix of 3 parts motor oil to 1 part axle grease. Apparently squirrels can get adequate traction from axle grease alone after a cool night as well as pull their weight up unslicked metal. Duct pipe works even better (against squirrels) but is a huge hassle to work with and you need 4’ feet of it starting at ground level.
Good information. The garbage can was an old damaged one I had and provided a quick attempt to discourage the raccoons. It’s only 2.5 feet high but I’ll leave it there to see if it works. Next yr I’ll do the 3 ft barrier.
As a trapping option, consider the dog proof coon traps. The raccoon has to pull up on the trigger to get it’s paw caught. In this manner the trap excludes animals lacking this manual dexterity. The traps are more effective and more affordable than the cage traps. The DP coon traps cost between $15 and $20 each.
What is roof coiling? do you have a photo or a link to a photo? I’d like to try your technique.
This is roofing coil. It also comes in unpainted 20" wide roles. Both types come in 10’ lengths. Usually if I use one pre-painted on the bottom and slightly overlap a 20" over it that’s enough distance if it starts a couple feet above the ground (for squirrels, raccoons don’t require as much height).
https://www.homedepot.com/p/Amerimax-Home-Products-24-in-x-50-ft-Sable-Brown-and-White-Aluminum-Trim-Coil-69124033/205664206?MERCH=REC--searchViewed--NA--205664206--N
Oh okay! Thanks Alan – I think I understand now. Do you attach it directly to the tree? Or to a fence? Or how are you starting it a couple of feet above the ground?
I staple them into trees with the largest available staples and a staple gun (I forget the name of the brand, but it’s the only one really powerful enough that we’ve tried- a very well known company).
It has to be pretty tight because squirrels have collapsible frames and sometimes you even need to stop chipmunks. You remove them shortly after harvest- we tie them to the base of the tree with string so we know which baffle goes where when they need to go up again.
OK, thanks. And the chipmunks and squirrels can’t get their claws through aluminum…brilliant!
There is some more details somewhere on a topic about squirrels- and photos.
This one was wreaking havoc in my tomato patch last year… my first 5 or 6 ripe tomatoes destroyed… half way eaten and left on the vine. He also just chewed down a few corn stalks… they had no ears yet… but he destroyed them too.
Box traps work well on coons.
If you do catch a young coon… skin and quarter… brown the meat pcs a little in iron skillet, with some bacon fat and chopped onions…then put all that in slow cooker… crock pot with onion carrots celery garlic mushrooms and a quart of chicken bone broth and cook 8 hrs or so. Salt and pepper to taste.
Good luck.
TNHunter
I will save your recipe for the day when I can’t purchase fish and meat from the super market. My vultures seem to enjoy their flavor without any prep at all. Only back straps of deer are delicious enough to motivate me to dress a corpse and I’m so slow at the process, I may not do that again.
You didn’t end your recipe with any indication of how good it will taste when properly prepared. Some times the rec for slowcooking is because the meat is so tough.
That recipe is similar to one of the oldest recorded recipe’s commonly used for small wild game (rabbit, squirrel, groundhog, etc)… Brunswick stew…
The main difference is that Brunswick stew is tomato based, instead of broth based. So you would toss in a quart of tomatoes instead of chicken broth.
One problem with either of those is the bones… you would have a finished product that not only hat the meat in it, but the bones too. Back in those days did folks have a problem with a few bones in their stew… evidently not… with the Paleo Diet it is highly recommended that you eat the entire animal, nose to tail… as we used to (on a regular basis) back before we got so highly civilized…
Organ meats are HIGHLY nutritious — there is NO veggie that even comes close to the nutritional value of beef liver. A couple hundred years ago humans regularly ate all organs, heart, liver, kidney, bone marrow, you name it, they ate it… What was left they would put in a pot and stew it and drink the broth.
When I first found my way to healing thru diet, my first step in the right direction was changing from SAD (Standard American Diet)… to Paleo Diet.
Broth based soups (Bone Broth) are highly recommended for their healing properties on the Paleo Diet… and I got really into that… and I understand how good that is for you. Thus my recommendation for broth over tomato for the base.
I make my own bone broth… and to show you how serious I was about it… I have a category on my phone (for bone broth photo’s)… probably not a lot of folks have a category for bone broth in their phone image catalog… 
I will put a image of some nice chicken bone broth below (upload from my phone shortly).
But during my 2-3 year journey thru Paleo Diet I got really into broth based soups… and some extremely common veggies to use in such soups are the trio of Onion, Celery and Carrots… they are just awesome in just about any soup or stew. Sauteed Onions, at least partially carmalized, oh so good… and add in garlic near the end of that, for even more flavor (garlic cooked too long can get bitter) so add them at the end…
Other veggies to add can be what ever you like… we don’t do potatoes (high carb) but they are awesome on most soups/stews… a low carb alternative that we often user are broccali stalks (not the florets) but the stalks, diced up, they are very good in soups/stews… and very low carb. I like to add some diced tomato near the end as well, they will cook all to pieces if you cook too long, but let them simmer in with your soup for 10-12 minutes and that works well.
And on the small game and bones… something that will help is first cook just the meat mostly, with just a little fat, long enough that it gets very tender… then take it out of our pot or slow cooker, and separate the meat and bones, add the meat and all juice back to the pot and then continue to build your soup/stew.
Veggies that are cooked in a broth based soup or stew, for 20-25 minutes will normally be cooked enough to be tender, even carrots or potatoes or broccoli stalks, if diced or sliced.
That recipe… either broth or tomato based, will make any small game animal, taste honestly about as good as they can possibly taste.
And yes, cooking longer is require for some small game, especially if they are fully grown adults, because they are just tuff.
A squirrel that is “young” can be fried like chicken, and will be plenty tender.
But one that is “old” you will wear your teeth and jaws out trying to get it chewed up.
The same is true of ground hog, coons, etc…
How do you determine if a squirrel or coon, or ground hog is “young” enough… well the way we always determine that is if they are old enough to have borne young (had babies)… they are generally too old.
If the female has suckled young, that will be obvious, if the male has well developed (specific parts)… well you know… too old for frying … better use a pressure cooker or slow cooker.
Hope this helps !
TNHunter
OK, here’s my recipe for you and it’s what I’ve been eating for lunch for years making over 3 gallon batches of concentrated stew at a time ( a little less than a pint is lunch after I add some water and get it hot in the micro and pour it into a thermos). Start with a Kuhn-Rikon pressure cooker, because it cooks at higher pressure than any other on the market I know of. Throw all the bones you’ve been saving in the freezer the previous month- egg shells too if you like, even clam shells. Add a couple tbs of the vinegar of your choice to help extract the calcium, water, and cook at high pressure long enough that chicken bones in the mix almost disintegrate (a couple of hours).That is your broth, but when you extract the bones (now excellent fertilizer) make sure you remove as much marrow as you can to add to your stew.
Cook up some combination of whole grains (salt to taste before)- I use teff seeds (vitamin rich Ethiopian whole-grain) domesticated wild rice, whole barley (takes a long time to cook, even in the PC), buckwheat groats, whole flaxseed, quinoa- a cup of each except 2 of barley and a pound of split peas. You can use up a lot of your broth while cooking these up in the pressure cooker.
Set them aside and cook your combination of vegetables depending on what’s ready in the garden. I buy my carrots and use huge ones from Canada as well as rutabaga, parsnips or turnips. Probably about 3 pounds of carrots. But I begin by cooking heaps of collards form the garden, kale or chard if I feel like it, but collards have more calcium and no natural chemicals that interfere with absorbing vitamins. I also buy and use a lot of celery. I buy containers of pre-cleaned but raw garlic and use the whole thing after dicing a bit- lots of it! a quart or two of ripe red diced sweet peppers from my garden (or from my freezer after harvesting and freezing them Broc, sweet corn, green beans, summer squash can all be added. A pound of chorizo or other highly flavored smoked meat (maybe not good for your body but so good for your palate) a couple pounds of other meat- I tend to use lamb and veal, enough hot peppers from the garden to give it kick. A quart or two chopped parsley. Spices to taste (I love green coriander berries from the garden, brown ones have to be ground). I cook all the ingredients in a 3.5 gallon steel pot- people say meat need to be seared to be flavorful, but my palate calls that a lie.
Anyway, I then combine all the ingredients as best I can and put it in one quart used yogurt containers and place in freeze except what I’m using that week. The only hard part is remembering to take a quart out of the freezer after beating your brains out all day long.
