Stupid racoons!

[edro]

I go out to feed my 2 cats last night.
I keep their food and water in our detached garage, which has a cat door.

When I open the door, I see a giant racoon, the size of a small dog.
It scurries over to the other side of the garage, climbs up some shelves and sits on a pile of lumber I have hanging in the rafters.

Great.

I thought about shooting it, but I was worried about putting a hole in the wall or ceiling...(all I have is a 7.62x39 rifle and a .45 pistol) and honestly, I don't have the heart.

I setup a cage trap with apples and bread and barricaded it so he couldn't escape.
This morning, my barricade had claw marks on it, was knocked down and the racoon was gone.

Tonight, I am going to try canned cat food in the trap. That's how I caught the last opossum. I'm sure racoons like canned cat food too.

I'll post pics if I catch him. I plan on driving him far away and releasing him (or her).

Anyone else have wild animal stories they care to share?

 

[AreaCode707]

In NorCal I have friends that live-trap them. First time they catch one they spray paint its tail orange and drive it up the mountain to release in the wild. If they catch one with an orange tail later they know it found its way back and is unlikely to leave them alone, so it gets shot.

Note: you may want to change your thread title to fully spell out racoons.

 

[KLin]

Ever read where the red fern grows?

http://www.newjerseyhunter.com/article119055.htm

 

[TecHNooB]

why, this is the most racist thing ive ever heard of.

 

[Drako]

Are you talking about Racoons? The thread title is misleading

LOL, nice quick edit there

Yet you did not change the tag, interesting

 

[Texashiker]

Barbecued my excellent compatriot,,,, man oh man that is some good stuff.

 

[BladeVenom]

Shoot him in the ass with a paintball gun. That should keep him from wanting to come back.

 

[Krazy4Real]

all the racoon wants is a loving home. Make it your pet.

 

[alkemyst]

It's unlikely you will be able to keep raccoons and opossums out if you leave food out for cats. They like the same foods.

 

[edro]

It's unlikely you will be able to keep raccoons and opossums out if you leave food out for cats. They like the same foods.

I'll relocate them all!!!

 

[BladeVenom]

Skunks also like cat food.

 

[highland145]

Ruger 1000fps pellet rifle, ftw.

 

[GrumpyMan]

He'll help you out......

 

[Sixguns]

all the racoon wants is a loving home. Make it your pet.

Growing up my family had one as a pet. It was pretty sweet until it flipped a switch and started chewing on its tail. I believe we ended up giving it to some company that using/trains animals for movies.

 

[waffleironhead]

Dont relocate that animal. You are just pushing problems on your neighbors as well as breaking the law. Kill the damn thing and be done with it

 

[ElFenix]

so you can't figure out how to barricade a raccoon in your garage and it's the stupid one?

 

[edro]

It wasn't meant to completely contain him... just to guide him into the trap full of food.
In hindsight, I would have completely barricaded the garage off.

I just hope he comes back so I can relocate him... other wise, I will always be anticipating his next strike.

 

[natto fire]

Capture the raccoon, then find a feral pack of dogs and drop it off there so at least it will be a meal for something. There has to be feral dogs near Grove City, or Obetz, SE side. Times aren't tough enough yet for me to start eating raccoon, but I have tried squirrel before just to know. Certainly not a bad taste, but not as savory as some cuts of meat. I grew up in Knox county and eating strange animals was quite normal.

 

[weirdichi]

I think I found out why they were there.

 

[MovingTarget]

This is one of my favorite stories, because I can totally see this happening to me: http://jalopnik.com/5182381/adventures-with-wildlife-surprise-underhood-opossum-nest

 

[brianmanahan]

i used to shoot the ones i caught but then i switched to drowning them instead. had to do it to about 30 of them last summer.

(i posted about this earlier and got an infraction for it ?_?)

 

[gorobei]

when i was growing up the raccoons would raid the fish pond in the backyard of my parents house. every so often they would tip over the garbage can for snacking. usually pretty stealth about it.

years later when the hills around us started being developed with ridiculously perched houses on stilts, the raccoon territory must have been seriously encroached as our backyard became grand central station for the buggers. they would climb the fence pretty loudly and start bathing themselves or washing their food in our pool. eventually they started having marco polo deathmatches.

a gang of raccoons would screech and hiss as loud as cats while chasing a single raccoon. i could hear them running around and slamming into the patio furniture. they would bully him so badly that the only safe place was to jump into the deep end of the pool and tread water. any time he approached the edge to climb up the rest would run over and growl daring him to come ashore. it got so bad that i would break up the party by tuning on the lights and walking out. the gang ambled(not ran) away like they owned the place while giving the stink eye to the guy in the pool(i swear one of them did the tough guy shoulder-shrug/chest-thrust flinch test). the swimmer waited a good long time to make sure they were gone, before getting out of the pool and skulking off over the fence.
Im guessing he wasnt part of the clan and was making moves on one of their females.

 

[Itchrelief]

i used to shoot the ones i caught but then i switched to drowning them instead. had to do it to about 30 of them last summer.

(i posted about this earlier and got an infraction for it ?_?)

Embellish this story and run with it. You held them under water with your bare hands until their bodies became limp, right?

 

[brianmanahan]

Embellish this story and run with it. You held them under water with your bare hands until their bodies became limp, right?

not a bad idea! though probably not really a crime though. i just toss the trap in the water, its not very exciting

 

[Red Squirrel]

Racoons are hilarious. But they can also be very destructive. Good job on trying to be humane about it.

I had something in my attic, I suspected it was a chipmunk or squirrel so I made a trap using PVC pipe. Whatever it was got out effortlessly, so I ended up just buying a real live trap. It triggered, the peanut butter was licked clean, and no sign of any animal. At that point I figured it has to be a mouse. Where there's one mouse, there's probably a lot. So I ended up using snap traps. I felt real bad for killing em, but way I see it, if it's not me that does it, either it's going to kill itself by getting stuck somewhere, or another animal is going to eat it. At least the snap traps are a quick kill. Caught 3 and was mouse free for a few weeks. I ended up having to put all the stuff I took out back in the closet (where the attic access is) due to company coming over and I have not checked since. I had 2 mouse traps for N+1 redundancy. For all I know there might be 2 dead dried up mice up there. I should really take all that stuff out of the attic and go check.