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Electric Fence: Fish Protection (see pond protection) Pond Protection Kits: Repellants: Traps: Ultrasonics and Strobes: Water Sprayers: Doing Business with Us: |
Raccoon Problems and Solutions Garbage and Chewing Solutions Raccoons are notorious for raiding outdoor garbage pails, but it doesn’t really matter whether it is raccoons, opossums, or some other critter, because the best answer is essentially the same: if you can’t remove the food source, make it unpalatable by spraying garbage bags or the garbage itself with something like Ro-pel® designed for precisely this purpose. Ro-pel® will make the garbage taste terrible to whatever is going after it, and will generally stop the attacks. Ro-pel® will also stop raccoons, opossums, and others from digging in mulch piles, chewing lawn furniture, etc. To go to the catalog page listing Ro-pel® click here. Raccoons eat both animals and plants. In the gardening department, raccoons’ true love is corn, though they will also damage melons and various other crops. On the farm they are well known for raiding chicken coops, killing fowl, eating eggs, and ravaging a wide range of food stores. The situation can be hard to deal with, because the best answer (removing or interdicting the food source) may not be an option, and coons are talented at breaking into food stores that have been boxed in, locked up, or otherwise protected. In this context repellents are not much use. For example, your author was once trying to trap a coyote and so put coyote urine, a classic raccoon repellent, all around the baited trap to cover human scent. That night the trap caught no coyote but did snare a raccoon–providing a good demonstration of what the books say–that hungry raccoons will overcome their aversion to repellents in order to reach food. Shooting, where it can be done, tends to yield uncertain or incomplete results (guns are dangerous, and a gun only works while someone is attached to it). A better answer is to trap the varmints, because raccoons are easy to trap. That’s no perfect solution, because raccoons often travel in groups, so in many cases a fair number must be trapped. Also, raccoons are territorial, so removed troublemakers may be replaced. For these reasons it’s probably better to use a coordinated approach. First trap raccoons familiar with the food source, then begin to trap on the outskirts of the invaded area and also install one or more motion-activated ultrasound devices (and perhaps apply a repellent like Shake-Away™ or Get Away®) near the food source–to scare off or repel exploring invaders not yet familiar with the source. For vegetable gardeners looking to protect corn and other crops, the best answer is Mr. McGregor’s Fence®. This effective but economical device puts a low barrier fence just behind two pet-safe, child-safe charged wires–so that a raccoon or other small animal seeking to go over or under the barrier will come into good contact with the charged wires, get zapped, and go home. Since animals are terrified by electricity much more than by repellents, this answer is 100% effective all of the time–and it works not only against raccoons but also against woodchucks, ground squirrels, rabbits, skunks, opossums, and virtually all small animals. Mr. McGregor’s Fence® can also protect poultry houses and farm food stores, because the barrier fence is only 18 inches high and needs no gate, and also because the electric wire portion of the fence will work against raccoons, though a little less perfectly, without the barrier fence. For more detailed information about Mr. McGregor’s fence, you can reach the McGregor Fence Company web site by clicking here: www.mcgregorfence.com. For summary information about all the products listed below, and also to order those products, click on any of the following headings: Electric Fence: Repellents: Traps: If raccoons have moved into some confined space in your attic, chimney, wall spaces, or into the rooms of an unoccupied building, there’s an easy way to evict them. Do not poison the raccoons unless you have a high tolerance to the ungodly smell of decaying flesh. Instead use Rid-a-critter® or Shake-Away™ (hung in net bags or tied-off sections of nylon stockings). Rid-a-critter® fumes can pose health risks in a confined space, so you shouldn’t use this remedy if people or pets will be exposed; and Shake-Away™ may not provide sufficient incentive for well-established resident raccoons to decamp. In such cases you can get rid of raccoons by trapping them with one or more baited live traps, sealing up their entrances once you are sure they are all gone, spraying the sealed-up areas with Ro-pel®, and then installing an ultrasonic device in the formerly infested area. (We don’t sell kill-traps because of the dangers they can pose to pets, children, and even adults in the hands of anyone who is not a skilled professional; but if you opt to release live-trapped raccoons, you should release them far away–some say as far as 20 or 30 miles away–in order to ensure they don’t return.) We also don’t sell moth balls, which are generally available at drug stores and supermarkets; but you can click on any of the following headings to reach the other recommended products: Repellents: Traps: Ultrasonics:Yard and Garden Protector Raccoons and opossums will dig up lawns to get grubs. If the area is small and the digging is relatively minor, try treating the area with Whole Control. If the critters persist, if the area is large, or if the digging is intense, you can try trapping. In that case you should follow this up, once the raccoons familiar with the food source have been removed, by treating a large area around the digging site with Shake-Away™ or Get Away® and/or by installing an ultrasonic repellent device or a motion-activated water sprayer. You should also (at least temporarily) remove the food source by treating the lawn with one or another standard grub-killing insecticide. Click on the following headings to reach the indicated products: Repellents: Traps: Ultrasonics: Yard and Garden Protector Water Sprayer: Scarecrow Raccoons will attack pond fish and may also damage pond plants. You can stop this eventually by trapping, and then protecting the pond area with Shake-Away™ or Get Away® and/or an ultrasonic device or motion-activated water sprayer–but not without putting the fish at risk for a considerable length of time. A better answer, indeed the best one in most cases, is provided by raccoon-repelling electric fence kits. These kits have posts that stick into the ground at the edge of the pond and support sharply angled arms that extend over the low over the water. These arms carry two or three runs of electric fence wire–wire bearing a charge too weak to harm fish or birds but plenty strong enough to shock and scare away raccoons. For more details about these kits see Pond Protection in the catalog. Should you have conditions to which the low arms are not suited, your best answer could be Mr. McGregor’s Fence® without the barrier fence part–just the electrical components. These low-key components, which include fiberglass posts of variable length (your choice) are very effective against raccoons and (like the pond protector kits) should end the problem. For more information see Electric Fence for Raccoon Control. Click on the following headings to reach the indicated products: Pond Protector Kits: Electric Fence: Repellents: Traps: Ultrasonics: Water Sprayer: Scarecrow |
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