Racoon management idea for people who have chickens
Racoons are cute, but they're
also one of the top predators to worry about if you have chickens.
Dragonflypower.com
has a system where he traps and cooks them. His suggestion for those
who are not enthusiastic about raccoon stew is to trap the biggest one
and take him to the vet to be fixed. Once he realizes your coop is
secure he'll stop trying and keep other racoons out of his territory.
Otherwise you end up with a fresh new crop of racoons each year who
will want to have a try at your delicious chickens.
We've never had a problem
with racoons thanks to Lucy's vigilante patrols.
Image credit goes to
Alaska-in-pictures.com.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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Raccoon meat isn't bad, but chicken is MUCH better! Raccoons are a renewable resource that can generate income during trapping season. They are easy to trap with foothold traps, dog proof traps like the Duke are fantastic, or in a well built cage trap.
If you're unwilling or not interested in putting up the fur there are likely trappers in your area who will gladly thin them out for you during trapping season.
Heath --- I've been poring over Harvey Ussery's The Small-Scale Poultry Flock, and his suggestion is to kill them and hang the raccoons in holey buckets over the chicken run. Flies lay their eggs in the rotting meat and the maggots crawl out to be snapped up by the chickens. Not for everyone, though....
Danny --- I don't know --- I think Lucy is too spoiled to eat raccoon. She killed one a few years ago (she takes her guard duties seriously) and it just rotted at the edge of the garden.