Raccoons: Do they ever leave?

[chickchickster]

I apologize in advance if this has already been asked!

For the past month or so, after sunset, I have awful visitors also known as raccoons. They either come in pairs (quite chunky) or in triples (a chubby mother and two of her children, I am assuming). They saw at wood. They bite at the hardware cloth. They leave signs every single night.

I have game cams. I have sensor lights/motion detectors. There are predator lights/solar nite guards around the coop and run. I have tried cayenne pepper, garlic powder, powders mixed in water with liquid dish soap, bottle of hot sauce, a concoction of cayenne pepper/jalapeno peppers/onions stewed for 20 minutes and sprayed, rags soaked in ammonia, essential oils... basically, any natural repellents/remedies you can think of, I've tried.

How do you get these awful, obnoxious, persistent, creepy eyes out of your yard? Live trap them? Shoot them? There's the tiny fear that they will continuously reproduce and come back.

Will these raccoons EVER leave? Or is the only remedy a concrete yard?

Thank you so much!

 

[Stepnout]

They only real sure way is to trap, and kill them or plain shoot them.
pretty drastic I know but I have NO LOVE for raccoons Around my garden or birds. They are great little critters in the wild but sadly they have adapted to life around people. This is the same with coyotes and deer.
when you have eradicated them a new group will take over the area.
the best thing to do is make your coop as safe as possible and hope they do not break in because they will kill most or all of your birds the first chance they get.
Sad but true.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome!
As you've seen, none of those predator repellants work for long. Electric fencing is one very good answer, if it's possible to use it where you live.
Be very aggressive about your coop security!!! Hardware cloth, very well secured, maybe 2"x4" woven wire over it too. Locks on all doors. Post pictures!
Only trap if you will then shoot! Releasing any is a bad idea, and relocating is worse. They are often easy to live trap, using a big trap, and any bait, including marshmallows.
Remember that their poo carries a dangerous roundworm for humans!!! They also can have rabies, and canine distemper. Make sure your pets are up to date on their vaccinations.
Don't have any food outside of the coop; no scraps, pet food, or anything that's attractive to them. That one thing helped a lot here, decreasing such visitors greatly. Stop wild bird feeding, if you do, for a month at least.
Do you have neighbors who feed them outside? Or who have 'pet' wildlife? That can really be a problem!
What's legal where you live? Check with your DNR, online, and by phone.
Mary

 

[mowin]

Not much you can do except shoot them. Yes, eventually, more will move in. Not sure what your yard/coop is like, maybe a hotwire around the coop and run as long as there no way for them to climb a tree and use the limbs to defeat the hotwire.

 

[cluckmecoop7]

I used to have a raccoon come around but right when I decided I would need to shoot it, my neighbor did it first!! But - he put a whole through his porch floor doing it.

 

[GC-Raptor]

Will these raccoons EVER leave?

Not in my experience. I've had them terrifying my Chickens for over a year.
Two would work as a team trying to get into my coop.

They can climb a fence. Squeeze through a gap of 3.7 inches, from my experience. Didn't get any chicken dinner at my place.
Then I got a new coop and a second Flock. They didn't seem to bother the new pullets till after they started to lay.
So it was October and egg production started to slow, because of the shorter daylight.
But then it dropped drastically.
I didn't change anything. So I aimed my game cameras towards the new coop. Low and behold one started to terrorize my new chickens.
I found tracks climbing up the side of the coop and footprints on the roof.
I bought a box trap and baited with stinky canned cat food, fish and seafood flavored.
It took a few days, but I got em. . That was last year, October 20.
Egg production resumed about a week later.
My cameras haven't snapped a photo of one since. They snap photos of Fox, Opossum, and Bunnies weekly. Neighbors Dogs and Deer less frequently during hunting season.
I believe the second Raccoon in the first picture ended up as roadkill or trapped/shot by another.
So 4 months without a Raccoon on camera. . GC

 

[centrarchid]

We have a few game cameras setup more for fun watching what predators do. The cameras speed detection of predators probing and actually getting into where chickens are housed. I have been trapping them more or less continuously, but keep them largely out of poultry area and feed using electric fencing. Almost all catches with traps have been outside fencing. As I upgrade my poultry guardian dog pack we are no longer seeing raccoons or raccoon sign. Dogs kill them once in a while, but for most part raccoon not coming in to avoid dogs.

My place is along a route some raccoons use. The raccoons are mostly local / repeat visitors. Would have a lot more traffic if close to a proper stream.

 

[Garmmermibe001]

Only trap if you will then shoot! Releasing any is a bad idea, and relocating is worse. They are often easy to live trap, using a big trap, and any bait, including marshmallows.

I just dealt with a raccoon this morning actually. Two in the past week actually. One had tried to dig under the coop. Caught it. Relocated it. But, before I caught it, I noticed some of my ceramic eggs were missing. (Some of my girls like to nest in the forest since they free range. And they just dont always lay in the coop. So, I try to at least encourage them to lay in easy to find or easy to access places. So, the ceramic eggs were not in the coop.)

I assumed the raccoon was the one who took the ceramic eggs. So, after I caught it, I bought some new ceramic eggs the next day. Well, the day after that, the ceramic eggs once again went missing. So, I set the trap again.

The first two nights, I actually caught two of my cats. Filthy creatures. They get fed enough inside. There's always food in their bowls. Anyhow, last night, I caught another raccoon and relocated it this morning.

For a minute, I considered just shooting it, but, I thought they were actually possibly a pair of baby raccoons I'd seen before I'd gotten chickens. So, I decided against it.

I guess all of this is just a really long winded intro to my question.

What's wrong with relocating them? Aside from... I guess the fact I'd just potentially be handing the problem off to someone else and also teaching them not to fall for traps.

I mean, now that I look back on it, I probably should have just shot it. And, I guess I will in the future.

 

[Folly's place]

Welcome!
Relocating raccoon, opossums,and foxes, at least, here in Michigan, can only be either within your own property, or on private land in your same county with landowner permission. Different states will have different rules, and it's for at least two reasons.
One, spreading diseases, like rabies, which is not a good thing, and has been spread by critter relocations.
Two, because the individual critter is lost in it's new location, will try to get back home, and is invading another territory. Bad for the resident population, and bad for the new drop off.
And three, because this critter wants chickens, and is now 'trap wise', and will seek out someone elses flock.
Mary

 

[Howard E]

I have coons in abundance......and don't trap or shoot em.....and have never lost a bird to one or had any real serious damage to anything from a coon.......or for that matter, anything else either.

Process I use is simple and straight forward. Birds are locked into a predator proof house at night and coons and varmints can't get in no matter what. When the door closes at night, they are safe from all would be chicken thieves. That alone takes care of 95% plus issues with coons, as around here anyway, they are almost exclusively nocturnal. But during the day, birds are also yarded on a small acreage enclosed by super hot electric fence designed to keep birds in and varmints out. That fence runs hot 24/7, so to even get to the coop, they gotta get past the fence and an encounter with that thing takes the fun out of chasing chickens completely.

Those two factors.....tight coop and hot fence........are what works. No shouting, no trapping, no shooting and no worries.

BTW, mine is the typical BYC flock......currently just short of 2 doz birds in a standard chicken house setup in the back yard. Larger flocks in a more diverse housing setup changes the dynamics some, but principle is the same.