Raccoon's are giving me fits!!!

[ShooterAZ]

No, they aren't in the attic. They are digging up my garden, and raising hell outside my bedroom window nightly. There has been a population explosion in my neighborhood. They roam around in packs, and when one pack meets another they have a gang fight.

They make the most god awful noises you ever heard. They won't go into the Havahart trap either, I tried canned cat food, tuna fish, and even BBQ steak trimmings. All they do is reach in there between the mesh and pull it out with their hands. I can't shoot them at 2:30 in the morning, because I live in the city limits and neighbors are close by.

I read on the internet that putting ammonia in dish with a rag will keep them away. Is this true? You know what they say about things you read on the internet:roll:I'm thinking of getting a crossbow and a headlamp. Anyone got any other ideas? Enough is enough, and Iv'e had enough! I need some advise!

[farmallcrew]

22lr sounds awful nice, or 1.5 coilspring traps sounds nice too.

[Cmemiss]

Try mothballs or better yet moth flakes, if you can stand the smell close to the house they kept possums out from under my deck.

[Gibbs44]

The only idea I might have is to brush up the sides and top of the trap enough that they cant reach in. You might get 1 or 2, but I don't know about all of them. Always could use a reason for getting a crossbow.

[country gent]

Put a fine mesh screen around sides and bottom of trap. bait with marshmellows and wait. Alot of town critters have been trapped with live traps so many times they can tell you make model and cost. A good 1000 fps pellet rifle with heavy "hunting pellets" will do the job with head shots at close range. Tuna fish oil, marshmellows, fruits and cat/dog food all make good baits. I have heard of penut butter being used also. Leg holds and conibears will get the niegbors complaining, As will animals dying in other yards. Ive had the same problem last year with woodchucks under the back deck. A 22 hornet dispatched them very cleanly from the kitchen window, Im out in the country though.

[1845greyhounds]

A friend had coons decimate his melon farm a couple years ago. He used traps and the like, but couldn't catch enough of them to matter. Through some research, he started using ant poison (pellets). He may have added some coke, maybe not. When the coons, or anything else, eats it, it kills them almost immediately. I can't image being poisoned is very humane, but he was past that... Any poison kills discriminately, so don't use it if there are other critters around that might get into it (dogs, cats, kids!!).

[Blacksmith]

CCI .22LR Quiet 40 gr. boolit 710 FPS accurate to 50 yards + but only 68 decibles, normal conversation is 60 Db.
http://www.cci-ammunition.com/products/detail.aspx?use=3&loadNo=960

Havaheart trap, Get the X-large Racoon sized one. Wire a cat food can inside hanging from the top so it is far enough away from the sides they can't reach it. In the can put some Marshmallow Fluff Cream, it is sticky so they have to work at it, add some grape jelly for aroma. Sprinkle some dry cat food along the center line of the cage to lead them in and put a small dish of water at the end of the trap, they like to wash their food. I always put the trap in place with the door wired open for several days before baiting it to get them used to it. If they still steal the bait put a thin board or aluminum plate inside to extend the trap trip plate so they can't reach over it.

Put up a game cam to see what's happening.

Trap
http://www.havahart.com/store/live-animal-traps/1081

Bait
http://www.drugstore.com/products/prod.asp?pid=397346&catid=296078&aid=338666&aparam=goobase_filler&device=c&network=g&matchtype=

[ShooterAZ]

Yup, I have the X-large trap. I wish I could shoot them...I have some Aguila Colibri 22 boolits, but I think even those will be too loud. I had no idea that they were partial to Marshmellows...I will give that a try, along with some of the other advice. My Coons are some smart ones, I just need to outsmart them I guess. The crossbow idea still sound exciting, to say the least.

[garym1a2]

A good dog will take care of them.

[Hamish]

Building a box for the live trap to go into will keep them from accessing anything but the entrance. (this works very nicely)

The bad thing about bolts and arrows is the chance of deflection.

[ShooterAZ]

You are right Gary. Sadly, my beloved Black Lab passed on Good Friday in April. I'm pretty sure that is one of the reasons why they are coming around now... I'm not sure if I would have wanted to send a 14 year old dog out after a pack of them coons though! I guess I need to start looking for another pup...still grieving and missing my dog.

[dbosman]

Flagstaff had a rabies outbreak in 2011.
Please be very careful.

In 2010 you had New, Fast-Evolving Rabies Virus Found -- And Spreading

Rabies has continued to crop up in skunks for eight years now, despite periodic vaccination campaigns. And so far this year, county officials have documented 14 rabid foxes in the Flagstaff area.
Now laboratory studies at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta appear to confirm that the fox and skunk rabies viruses

Here are your local experts, contact numbers.
http://www.azdhs.gov/phs/oids/vector/rabies/animalcontrol.htm

Coconino County Animal Management
2500 N. Fort Valley Rd. Bldg. 1
Flagstaff AZ 86001
(928) 226-2794
(928) 679-8756
(928) 679-8771
(877) 679-7272

Flagstaff Police Department - Animal Control
Coconino County Sheriff's Office
911 E. Sawmill Rd.
Flagstaff AZ 86001
(928) 774-1414
(800) 338-7888
(928) 779-2701 dispatch
(928) 679-8756
(928) 774-4523 after hours

[mroliver77]

We use peanut butter as bait in the wild. Lots of farmers use fly bait an sugar in antifreeze. I have seen coon 10 feet from the concoction. Other animals are at risk from poison. A long barreled rifle with a heavy for caliber pure lead boolit over a couple grains of bulls eye is very quiet!

My trick is to fill an fired 30-06 case up to the neck with WW alloy. I then drill down to the primer with a bit just large enough to allow depriming. I have a .250 rod from a lee die set with no expander portion but it has the depriming pin. I have got down to less than 1 grain of powder to move a boolit out of the barrel. 2 grain BE will move a 210 - 250 gr boolit plenty fast to damage a varmint! As has been stated, deflections and ricochets are common with these loads if you miss.

This is for informational purposes only! I stole the basic idea from Paco Kelley.
J

[garym1a2]

Good Dog.
73763

[dakotashooter2]

Look up dog proof racoon traps........... I also saw where someone cut a 50 cent piece size hole on a piece of plywood and put a leghold trap and bait behind it (assuming it was enclosed).............

[ShooterAZ]

Good Dog.
73763

Can I borrow your dog for a couple of days?

[frkelly74]

Put bacon grease on the ground right under the mercury vapor light and set up on the kitchen table. Shots through the screen from just inside the patio door with sub-sonic remingtons. At 4 in the AM no one noticed.

[LUCKYDAWG13]

CCI 22 min mag works just fine

[quilbilly]

When I had coyote problems at our former place in town, I used our den with a sliding door looking out into the back yard. When the coyote family complete with pups wandered out onto my backyard lawn, I just cracked open the sliding door and shot from 6 feet inside the den. All the neighbors knew was that the coyotes were suddenly gone

[45 2.1]

Do you want them to stop....... or be gone........ or dead within 30 feet? If it is the last, PM me and I will tell you how.

[10-x]

Old American Indian method is ,coat a sharp blade with bacon grease, critter licks it cut tongue, bleeds out. No pets or other critters you value should be around.

[ShooterAZ]

Do you want them to stop....... or be gone........ or dead within 30 feet? If it is the last, PM me and I will tell you how.

PM sent.

[Johnch]

2 ways to controll coon
As I live on a farm and we kill them to save the corn

# 1 is a Duke Dog Proof trap
Bait with marshmellows or caned cat food
Dogs can't get caught
Only other thing I have ever caught in one of these traps is a possum

#2 is a bit mean .....but it works and targets a coon's sweet tooth
In a plastic container place Coke and Golden Marlin fly bait
Mix and set where the coon will find it
Like in the garden

But place it where dogs will not get into it

Most of the time
You will find the dead coon within 50 feet of the Coke & Golden Marlin

John
It kills the coon

[ShooterAZ]

2 ways to controll coon
As I live on a farm and we kill them to save the corn

# 1 is a Duke Dog Proof trap
Bait with marshmellows or caned cat food
Dogs can't get caught
Only other thing I have ever caught in one of these traps is a possum

#2 is a bit mean .....but it works and targets a coon's sweet tooth
In a plastic container place Coke and Golden Marlin fly bait
Mix and set where the coon will find it
Like in the garden

But place it where dogs will not get into it

Most of the time
You will find the dead coon within 50 feet of the Coke & Golden Marlin

John
It kills the coon

OK...I'm gonna call the ranch/farm stores tomorrow. It's only 74 in the house right now( instead of 80 something, no AC), so I'm going to close the windows and hopefully get some sleep tonight. Thanks to everyone's advise.

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

into it!

[JIMinPHX]

A good dog will take care of them.

Pick that dog carefully. I've seen a coon rip up a Doberman that was nearly twice his size.

I've also seen a coon get up with 5 shots from a .22 in him. It took the last shot in that revolver to put him down & keep him there. They can be tough critters.

They are also smart & they have opposing thumbs. I've seen one take a snap hook off of a safety hasp to get into a garbage bin & I've seen one work a door knob. I've even seen one open a box trap from the outside to let his little buddy out.

[JIMinPHX]

Get a can/silencer instead of a crossbow ... Can be used for hunting in AZ now too! Load to 1,000 FPS, job done and fun! :)


Geeze, when did that change?

[Three-Fifty-Seven]

7[/url]

[RPRNY]

.22 air rifle with good Beeman Kodiak copper plate pellets. Some of the big fellas will not drop dead but they will eventually bleed out if you are invthe vital zone. Lungs and neck.

[1845greyhounds]

I grew up in Flagstaff and never saw a raccoon. There was a story about high fecal content in Oak Creek resulting in all sorts of regulatory problems. Upon further review, raccoons in the head waters were the problem. Or so the story goes...

[uscra112]

HOW GLAD I AM that I moved to a rural spot where the report of my 5.56x45 draws no attention whatsoever.

[429421Cowboy]

If you just punch holes in the can of tuna, instead of opening it they can't steal it and you can reuse the can for several nights.
We trap them like crazy in our feedlot where they raid the feed bins and can eat/destroy hundreds of $$ in a single night, we use a live trap but while it doesn't kill our barn cats, it still makes me mad to catch a cat when it could be catching a coon, which is where the so called "dog proof" or "coon cuff" traps come in that require a coon to pull up on the trigger instead of simply pushing on the pan, so you don't have to worry about non target pets. This of course depends on how the neighbors might feel if they are able to see where you are trapping.
Another fix that is a better all around solution that we use in our garden is to set up a solar fence charger like we use for keeping our cows in, except instead of hooking the ground wire up to a ground rod, you run your hot wire a few inches off the ground around the garden, then a second wire about an inch above that and connect it to the ground terminal of the charger. Just the hot wire and ground rod setup will hurt, but if you set it up the other way, with ground and hot wires, it will literally arc weld your toes to each other! We have no more coon problems and no more having to bait and check traps around the garden constantly to keep up.

[Bad Water Bill]

Many years ago I had a coon that wanted to call my attic home and play there all night. I took a Bear 60# bow and a nice aluminum arrow with BRIGHT red fletching thru the hatch into the attic.

Turned on the light and HELLO MR COON. Well the arrow went a little behind the boiler room but all I could see was RED fletching sticking out of the near side.

Being trapped in the attic with an injured coon is no way to spend a relaxing evening so I quickly dropped down and closed the door to the attic.

In the mourning there was my arrow laying on the peak of the roof BENT about 45 degrees.

Somehow it had bent the arrow to crawl out onto the roof then pull the 30" shaft including feathers free and vanished never to be seen or heard from again:bigsmyl2:

Another suggestion.

Put the HAVAHART in the bottom of a heavy duty Black construction bag. Peal back the bag far enough to keep the door clear.

Now the trap looks like a cave to those cute KOONS. When they are trapped, completely close the bag and they can be handled any way you want as they are resting quietly getting ready for their DIRT NAP.

Take inside of the garage,close door, cock your air rifle and LIGHTS OUT.

No neighbor heard a thing.

[762 shooter]

You might can still use your Havahart.

I had feral cats and coons that didn't need to be in my space.

Bait the trap and lock the door open so it won't trigger. Feed them until they feel comfortable then set the trigger. May take a while, but I have had 100% catch rate using this method.

Step two: administer 40 grain cranium pill.

Step three: Repeat.

762

[10x]

A good dog will take care of them.

Racoons are a vector for rabies.

A crossbow or 22 caliber CB caps will do nicely if the bylaws will allow discharge of a firearm.

I do not have Coons, I have never ending supply of squirrels - two live traps, and $10.00 worth of gas to dispose of them.
I am thinking about setting snares after they are prime in late November, skinning and stretching them....

[JIMinPHX]

In the mourning there was my arrow laying on the peak of the roof BENT about 45 degrees.

Somehow it had bent the arrow to crawl out onto the roof then pull the 30" shaft including feathers free and vanished never to be seen or heard from again:bigsmyl2:


When my little brother was about 8, he tried using a blow gun on a coon. He put about a dozen darts in the thing before he ran out of ammo. The next morning, he found his darts lined up neatly on the branch where the coon had been.

[rockrat]

Think I saw on a site somewhere about others having racoon problems. They solved them by using strawberry jellow and vodka and making jello shots for the racoons. Put a bowl of them out. Got the racoons drunk, then went out with a pellet rifle and cleaned house, they were too drunk to care.

[Zymurgy50]

Plant some of the hottest peppers you can lay your hands on, a buddy of mine that lives in town always had coons getting into his small garden. That is, until a couple of years ago when he decided to grow a couple "Ghost chillis". That summer the coons left his garden alone.
(That fall my buddy called me and frantically asked me how to get the burning sensation out of his mouth)....

[Johnch]

Think I saw on a site somewhere about others having racoon problems. They solved them by using strawberry jellow and vodka and making jello shots for the racoons. Put a bowl of them out. Got the racoons drunk, then went out with a pellet rifle and cleaned house, they were too drunk to care.

I am not a coon
But to many jello shots and I don't care either LOL

John

[Bad Water Bill]

Plant some of the hottest peppers you can lay your hands on, a buddy of mine that lives in town always had coons getting into his small garden. That is, until a couple of years ago when he decided to grow a couple "Ghost chillis". That summer the coons left his garden alone.
(That fall my buddy called me and frantically asked me how to get the burning sensation out of his mouth)....

Someone here said a spoon of peanut butter puts the flame out. Never tried it but might be worth a try if you likes em HOT.

[Johnch]

Plant some of the hottest peppers you can lay your hands on, a buddy of mine that lives in town always had coons getting into his small garden. That is, until a couple of years ago when he decided to grow a couple "Ghost chillis". That summer the coons left his garden alone.
(That fall my buddy called me and frantically asked me how to get the burning sensation out of his mouth)....

Great flavor
But .....but to hot
I have added 1 or part of one to a big pot of stew a number of times

John

[rockrat]

I have heard, to get the burn out, is to take a teaspoonful of sugar. The receptors for sweet, on the tongue, are the same receptors that the "heat" molecules latch on to. Also heard that if you are going to eat hot foods, go the sugar route just before you start eating, that way, the receptors are already "occupied" by the sugar.

[dakotashooter2]

Poor mans dog proof trap. I remember reading this in the book "Big Red". Drill/bore a 1-1 1/2" hole 3-4" deep in a log. Drive in 3 nails at an ange the penertrate into the hole leaving about a 1/2'-3/4" gap between the points. Put bait in the botom of the hole.
Coon will work its paw in to grab the bait and the angle nails will prevent it fron pulling it back out.

[JIMinPHX]

(That fall my buddy called me and frantically asked me how to get the burning sensation out of his mouth)....

Vegetable oil. That stuff is oil soluble, not water soluble. Swish the oil around in your mouth good & hard for about 30 seconds, then spit it out, then wash out any remaining oil in your mouth any way that you can.

Many years ago, I used to commercially produce the high strength extract that goes into pepper spray. It's basically the same stuff, just a little stronger. In restaurants, they usually have signs in the bathroom that advise the employees to wash their hands after using the facilities. Our signs warned the employes to carefully wash their hands BEFORE using the facilities. ...Long story.

It works well for keeping horses from chewing up the tops of fence posts too.

[10x]

Plant some of the hottest peppers you can lay your hands on, a buddy of mine that lives in town always had coons getting into his small garden. That is, until a couple of years ago when he decided to grow a couple "Ghost chillis". That summer the coons left his garden alone.
(That fall my buddy called me and frantically asked me how to get the burning sensation out of his mouth)....

Bread, rice, potato, anything with starch that will absorb the spicy oil.

I grew some peppers *Scotch Bonnet) one year. My neighbor came and and raided my fridge, made a cheese sandwich and sliced some of my home grown peppers on to it
He simply stopped speaking. His neck turned red, then purple, then the purple went up and covered his face. He then went and had a thick slice of bread with heavy butter on it. Also several glasses of milk. After about fifteen minutes his face dropped back to a dull red and then very eloquently said. "It is just like biting into a grilled cheese sandwich and the cheese is scalding hot - and you can not spit it out..." He did not say much after that...

[10-x]

10x....Hey, we have the same handle but you're missing the dash.....Who'd you shoot with/for?
Ghost peppers are the hottest thing I've had. Guy I know grows em every year, has to wear latex gloves to pick them, wears 2 pair to cut them up. I put 1 piece about 1/4" square in some salsa, everybody could barely eat it.

[10x]

10x....Hey, we have the same handle but you're missing the dash.....Who'd you shoot with/for?
Ghost peppers are the hottest thing I've had. Guy I know grows em every year, has to wear latex gloves to pick them, wears 2 pair to cut them up. I put 1 piece about 1/4" square in some salsa, everybody could barely eat it.

I have used the 10x handle on various newsgroups and forums for a dozen years.
It is 10 in the X ring... A perfect score.

[RoyEllis]

Poor mans dog proof trap. I remember reading this in the book "Big Red". Drill/bore a 1-1 1/2" hole 3-4" deep in a log. Drive in 3 nails at an ange the penertrate into the hole leaving about a 1/2'-3/4" gap between the points. Put bait in the botom of the hole.
Coon will work its paw in to grab the bait and the angle nails will prevent it fron pulling it back out.
Definately works, we always used horseshoe nails as they're quite sharp & we also used 4 nails per hole. Drilled holes in 8 to 12 inch long chunks of 4x4 post lumber, 2 fence staples to attach baling wire to it and a rebar drag hook so they could wander a little ways & get hung in brush. Some nights we'd get several from the same gang-set location.