Raccoon season

[Little Farmer Debi]

Now I have had chickens for over 8 years and we have
only had 2 episodes with Raccoons.
Now in the last week we have caught 4 in the trap
what in the world is going on here ?????????

[Chaty]

Well its been like that all the time here...I think its because people are moving into their habitat and destroying their homes so they have to move on to find food and water.
We have them here alot but some years not as bad.

[Little Farmer Debi]

This is awful. I hate killing wildlife.
and todays is a very young one, the smallest yet.
Hubby thinks it's a family, if so we haven't caught big Momma yet.  :(
not to much construction going on here
we are backed up to hundred of acres of woodlands.

[Little Farmer Debi]

and  went out front and another coon has been hit by a car on my road
that makes 5 coons in the last week 

[Sinorejas]

Debi, we're seeing a huge increase in the numbers of varmints here, too..................deer, of course (gobbling corn), and Steve has, in the past two weeks, shot & killed two separate familes of groundhogs going through our yard to the soybean field next to us, to eat the young bean plants!!!!!!!!

[Chaty]

Well today I noticed a bag of range cubes was torn open again...it either had to be a coon or possum...well went to put up the chickens and Beauty had gotten out of the goat pen...she does that sometimes....she had a possum on the steps of the feed room...I thought it was dead but it was playing possum as when I got back out there with the 22 it was on its way across the pasture...still have the trap set so who knows if it comes back...
I hate possums most as it can affect the horses...coons kill my chickens so they dont last long around here if they get caught...sorry Deb but out here taking it off just causes someone else to have the problem...too many here.

[GoatTech]

WOW, they must be in your area right now for some reason. I have had spells like that where I was trapping several day after day. Usually 4 was the max, but if you had a few families,....

We had a fox get hit by the house the other day, I had my own personal happy moment when I saw him out in the road. That would be one less to get my chickens.

[Little Farmer Debi]

we only released the 2 really small ones 9 babies).
and they were out at the power plant return lines. no people for miles.
the rest we have shot.
In less than 2 weeks ,the count now is 6 in the trap, 1 on the road and I saw 3 in the field yesterday ,
I think they were looking for their mom.
the 1 I caught this morning was a really mean male and had a blind eye.
Sat night we also saw 3 skunks in the yard and 1 of the was mostly white 

[Little Farmer Debi]

yesterday morning nothing and
this morning another big one

[GoatTech]

 

[Little Farmer Debi]

last night we caught a small possum
do they eat chickens too ?

[Chaty]

yes they do if they catch them sleeping...

[doublebowgoats]

And if they bite them they will get a bad infection. (Not that my daughter and I have given pen shots to a chicken...)