Omelet wrote:
In article ,
Poe wrote:

General Schvantzkopf wrote:
On Fri, 22 Aug 2008 11:22:27 -0400, Poe wrote:

General Schvantzkopf wrote:
My corn patch is surrounded by a wire fence but it hasn't kept the
raccoons out. I don't see any holes under the fence so I don't know how
they are getting in. Can raccoons climb wire fences?

I caught one last night in my trap and moved him to some conservation
land about 5 miles away. I've reset the trap and I fully expect to
catch several more, but from past experience it's pretty much
impossible to make a dent in the raccoon population. Does anyone have
any other suggestions?
Is it an electric fence? That's what I use, to shock critters so they
bugger off. Unfortunately raccoons are very good climbers, agile, and
pretty clever when it comes to overcoming obstacles. Where I live, if
you trap one it is illegal to move it, it must be killed (though I have
moved them, because I don't have the heart to kill).

But to answer, yes, it probably grabbed the fence with it's little hands
and climbed right over.
How did you electrify your fence? Did you run a wire at the top of the
fence? The fence itself is attached to metal poles that are in the ground,
so it can't be electrified directly.

I'm sure that moving them is illegal in my area also but I don't have the
heart to shoot them, and I don't own a gun anyway.

The professional pest removal guys around here drown them. I once hired
a guy to remove raccoons who got into my heating vents - I had to get
rid of them before they died or went to the bathroom in there, which
would make my house germy and stinky, and be difficult to correct.
That's when I learned what they do, and it made me sick. The guy told me
to just get my own trap and when I catch a coon, throw the trapped
animal in my pond. That made me sick, I don't even like to kill most
insects.

My electric fence is a wire strung across a number of plastic posts, and
powered by a solar box that cost about $100. The fence is only about 4'
high, but that is at nose-level for the deer, and since I installed it
my garden seems to be off the menu! It was super easy to set up, too.

I've drowned trapped rats a couple of times.

I won't do it any more. :-(

A plastic bag hooked up to an exhaust pipe with the animal inside of it
will kill more mercifully with CO gas, or some Ether from the auto parts
store.

I prefer to put a bullet between their eyes. Quicker and more merciful.
If you can't do it, find a neighbor that can?


I hope I don't trap anymore. The problem area for us had been our barn,
because they'd burrow under the walls every year (the floor was gravel),
and then set up house in the rafters and have babies. They were really
dirty, crapping all over in there and making the place toxic.

At that point we did borrow a trap and decided we had the guts to shoot
them, but not me, so I sent my husband out there to do it. I never heard
a shot, and eventually he came back in and said "it's looking right at
me, I don't want to shoot it". That's the one we illegally moved.

Finally we got a clue, and had a cement floor put in this year to keep
them out once and for all. Since then we've been cleaning out everything
and tossing or disinfecting (and we set up a little shooting range in
it, too!).

My only remaining worry is that we have a cat door, which is where the
ones in our heating vent came in thru. It happened only that once,
though, and that was about 10 years ago, and the heating vent thing was
just odd timing because we had the covers off at the time to change
them. And we've kept them out of the garden so far with the afore
mentioned electric fence.