Racoons invade

I guess the hot dry weather has forced the 'coons out of the deeper woods.
Creekis dry so they have come upthehill to my garden.

They want the 'maters, for moisture mostly I guess.

I don't mind too much because they only take ten or so a night but,,,,,they keep tearing up the plants.


Other than a .22 any ideas?

Electric fence works around the top of a 4ft. tall 2X4 mesh wire. They love sweet corn.

Kill them as fast as you can. They will progress in their damage and get closer to your house as they get more comfortable.

Large Hav-a-heart trap. Dangle Milkbones (cats don't like them) from the back ceiling and block off the top, back and sides so they can't roll the trap around.

Stick an old shotgun (I use a .410) in the cage and pull the trigger when they bite the end of the barrel - it silences the blast nicely. The .22 works but takes longer.

This system works so well that I stopped counting how many 'coons I got. Must be close to 20 in the last 2 years.

These guys are probably my own fault. Their ancestors once occupied my attic. in St Peters. I had transplanted them from my house to the woods behind my Wentzville MO (15 miles away) factory years ago.

I haven't tried sweet corn for years as they always get that. But this is the worst I have ever had to deal with on the 'maters. I'm thinkin' the heat brought them but I doubt, now that they have found a free lunch, they will go away.

Damm critters remind me of entitled Liberals. It's like the old sayin' give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he will do it in your boat and drink all the beer.

FrancSevin said:

It's like the old sayin' give a man a fish and he will eat for a day. Teach him to fish and he will do it in your boat and drink all the beer.

Click to expand...

I like that.

I used to have a live and let live policy but they became more and more destructive. Then I used to trap them, take them 'way down back and release them. All that did was make them a whole lot smarter and harder to trap when the came back up round the house. These days I'm like PBinWA except that I use dog kibble and a .22 as I don't have a .410.

Oh, our outside cat can terrorize them, especially the smaller ones but she's smart enough to stay away from the big ones. I had a game camera set up because I just couldn't trap this one and I wanted to see what it was doing. I caught it sitting on top of the half gate to the herb garden with the cat sitting directly below it. There was a stand-off for maybe 10 seconds and then the raccoon started down off the gate head first. The cat jumped up and raked its snout with her claws and it took off. The next night it pounced on the raccoon from the hood of my wife's car. It didn't hang on or anything, just landed on its back and took off but so did the raccoon. The third night it didn't even get down off the wall. It took off, never to be seen again, when the cat wandered over and sat directly under it. That cat is going to get tore up one of these days but so far it's doing a good job.

It must be time for momma coon to wean her litter...Lots of half grown ones roaming around the country side. Many are being hit on the roads. Back in the day the furr was worth $$, but unfortunately they aren't any more. Now they just cause headaches, and damage to what ever. They sure are hard on a sweetcorn patch if there isn't an electric fence to stop them.

Regards, Kirk

Just watched a momma with 3 babies following behind cross the field this morning. They sure are growing fast.