On Sep 26, 5:31 pm, "David E. Ross" wrote:
On 9/26/2007 1:46 PM, Paul E. Lehmann wrote:
Anyone have and effective remedy against racoons?
I have a backyard vineyard in town and they are
devouring my fruit. They are getting through the
bird netting like it is not even a problem for
them.
Racoons consumed my entire crop of table grapes, one vine each of
'Perlette' and 'Black Monukka'. They did not touch the grapes until
they were ripe.
I was advised to tie paper lunch bags around each bunch just before they
were complete ripe. This is supposed to protect the fruit from both
racoons and squirrels.
I have a "have a heart" trap and in the last two
weeks have caught 4 of them. I caught two
earlier in the season for a total of 6 so far. I
take them about 6 miles away. Is this far
enough? How large a family do they usually have?
I have a medium Havahart (brand name) trap for squirrels. I release the
squirrels in a state park about 5 miles away, on the other side of an
8-lane freeway. There are pleanty of hungry coyotes and hawks in the
park.
I was told that I need a large Havahart trap for racoons. If I catch
any, I can take the trap to the local animal shelter (which won't accept
squirrels). The shelter will relocate racoons that are a problem.
In any case, I no longer have my grape vines. The entire slope where
they were planted had to be stripped and regraded because of a
slope-failure in a rain storm. Most of the rest of my garden is also
gone, chewed up by the grading equipment. 
The repairs will be done
by Friday (so I was told). In the meantime, I heard a rustling in the
back yard one night about 6 weeks ago. With a large flashlight, I
checked and saw a large racoon and three small ones; they found nothing
but desolation.
Replanting should begin in the next week or two. I have rooted cuttings
of 'Perlette', 'Black Monukka', and 'Flame' to put on the slope. While
the whole slope had to be repaired, it did not really move where the old
grape vines were growing. Grapes have tough, deep roots. Thus, I am
adding a third vine.
It will be about three more years before I again worry about racoons.
--
David E. Ross
Climate: California Mediterranean
Sunset Zone: 21 -- interior Santa Monica Mountains with some ocean
influence (USDA 10a, very close to Sunset Zone 19)
Gardening pages at http://www.rossde.com/garden/
Don't know if anyone has tried to build a barrier at the base of the
grape vine that is difficult for raccoons to climb? I know they can
climb simple structures, so this barrier would have to be designed
very well with no easy places to grasp and climb with their powerful
claws.
Perhaps an even more wild idea may be to feed them cat food at a
corner of your lot and build a fence or barrier between the cat food
and your grapes? The logic is that once they're satisfied with cat
food, they won't have much interest in your grapes?
BTW I confess to feeding raccoons on a shelf in my back porch along
with neighborhood cats, opossums, birds and any critter that can climb
up to a shelf about 30 inches above the floor. I can assure you that
the raccoons can climb this height very easily. I built the shelf in
order to keep my neighborhood dogs from eating the cat food. That was
successful. And I don't mind feeding the other critters, as well.
Fortunately, the skunks haven't figured out how to climb the shelf.
So if you want to feed cats and not skunks, the shelf may be your
solution. Of course, if the dogs visit me and beg for food, I feed
them, as well. In case you're wondering, I buy a 16 lb bag of cat
food each week. Most of it goes to the raccoons, of course, since
they're bigger and hungrier than the cats and opossums
It may take a lot of cat food to satisfy your raccoons, depending on
how many and how big they are. Then, again, they may prefer the
grapes over cat food? You may test that question by placing a bunch
of grapes next to some cat food and seeing which they eat first?
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