Racoon story

[Cyclonepride]

So a couple of days ago, I had just moved into my new house (not new, but new to me). It was 5 am and lightning like crazy, so I woke up to unplug our tvs and computers. I went down in the basement, and checked the weather radar on the internet before shutting it down.

As I am checking it, I hear a thump thump, and then scratching at my office window. We have recessed windows that are about 4' deep. I go to the window, and am staring face to face with a huge buck racoon. I tap on the window to try to scare him away, but he freaks out and starts trying to climb the corrugated metal, but can't do it. Then he sprawls himself across my window, with his belly pressed up against it, and proceeds to gnaw on my window frame trying to get in. Meanwhile, water starts seeping through my wall from all the rain.

I ran upstairs to try to figure out what to do, saw that my downspout extension had fallen out, which was the likely cause of the water problem. I fixed that, then decided the only option was to drive over to my old house where my step ladder still was, and lower to him to get it out. When I got back with the ladder, he started climbing it before I even got the ladder to the bottom, and off he went.

Damn, I wish I had a picture of him sprawling against my window! What a way to wake up in the morning.

[247cy]

Racoons tried to get on our back porch once, but Momma just chased them off with a broom.

[isucyfan]

When I was growing up, we had a wild raccoon that we had "tamed" enough that she would come to our window at night. Of course, my brother and I didn't want to go to bed, so we would smuggle Froot Loops into the room and she would eat right from our hand.

I wouldn't recommend this, because raccoons can be downright nasty.

[Cyclonepride]

I thought my Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom experiences were done when I moved. At my old house, over the course of ten years, I found and had to capture/ chase out of the house: one squirrel, a crow and two bats. All of those critters are remarkably fast in confined spaces!

[cybsball20]

When I was younger we lived on a creek near Jacksonville. One day I wanted to go out and play and there was a 6 ft. alligator sleeping, leaned up to our screened porch door...

[isukendall]

Might sound a bit redneck, but when I was a kid my grandfather found a nest of baby coons and the momma, shall we say, wasn't around anymore. Instead of letting them starve, he gave them out to us grandkids. We fed it with a bottle, raised it basically as a cat, fed it cat food. Actually let it in the house sometimes too. It was really tame for about 9 months, then the wild started setting in so we let it loose.

Coolest thing to watch was when you'd give it something shiny...a coin, tinfoil, anything. It would bring it to the water dish and wash it with its "hands" for hours.

[Landshark]

We raised a baby coon after her mother was ran over near our house. It was great, but you once she got bigger she wanted out of her cage and would tear out of it repeatedly. One day she got tore up pretty bad by a neighborhood dog. She moved down to the woods soon after that, but would come by the house every now and then. She had a limp after the fight with the dog so we always knew it was her.

[ISU BET]

went to get the oil changed once, came back an hour later and animal serivces was there. asked what was going on and there was a live full grown possum curled up inside of the engine of my wifes jeep. pretty creepy.

[friarcrazy]

Originally Posted by isukendall

Might sound a bit redneck, but when I was a kid my grandfather found a nest of baby coons and the momma, shall we say, wasn't around anymore. Instead of letting them starve, he gave them out to us grandkids. We fed it with a bottle, raised it basically as a cat, fed it cat food. Actually let it in the house sometimes too. It was really tame for about 9 months, then the wild started setting in so we let it loose.

Coolest thing to watch was when you'd give it something shiny...a coin, tinfoil, anything. It would bring it to the water dish and wash it with its "hands" for hours.

We did the same thing up in northern MN. They really are like cats. Cute little buggers when they're growing up.

[Landshark]

Originally Posted by friarcrazy

We did the same thing up in northern MN. They really are like cats. Cute little buggers when they're growing up.

They are like cats, but one thing I noticed when "Rocky" was young she was loyal like a dog and even had the "puppy dog" breath. It was fun walking around with a baby coon on your shoulder although their claws are painful.

When Rocky moved down to the timber I found her home (a bunch of fallen trees), she would come close to me the first few times, but then she hooked up with another coon and we never saw her again.

[Cutlass]

Raccoon story from my blog:
a view thru smudged glasses: War with the Raccoons

War with the Raccoons


So Sunday night we hear this loud banging rumbling sound at around 3ish AM. I'm not quite sure what it is, but I really should find out. Our fear is that our furnace is about to blow up as it's nearly 30 years old and all. But first I check in Corwin's room as occasionally he'll go a bumpin' in the night. He was sound asleep, sans blankets. So I cover him and move on down the the basement and check the furnace. It's running fine as usual. No bumps or explosions.

I check out the front door and don't hear anything. I check out the back deck door. And there is a raccoon on the deck railing trying to eat the woodpecker suet cake. I run back in the house to get the camera, but when I return he buggers out down the deck support pole.

Monday night, he is at it again but this time he's after the seed in the swanky bird feeder. It really makes quite a racket as the tree is just outside of our bedroom window. But it's nearly empty of seed so we go back to bed when they quiet down.

Yesterday I refill the bird feeder and move it further away from the deck railing, hoping that he can't reach it there. More clattering sounds at 3 am again. Louder than ever. This time he's invited a friend to come along. As I look out the bedroom window one of them is in the tree, shaking the bird feeder for all it's worth. The other one is trying to get at the suet cake. I bang on the window to scare them away. They proceed to ignore me.

So I stumble down the stairs open the door and find one of them has taken off. But the other is hanging out in the tree, cool as you please. So I wander back in and find the little point and shoot, cause there is no focusing the DSLR in this dark. So I snap a couple of photos. Then I roar like a great ogre, flailing my arms. He just looks at me like I'm some lunatic. And a harmless lunatic at that, cause he isn't running.

I think the better of engaging him in hand to mouth combat, because he has sharp little pointy teeth and eyes that glow with the fire of Beelzebub. That raccoons dynamite! I think a broom vs. a raccoon will even the odds in my favor. I run in the house and get the broom and return to the deck. When I return he's advanced on the door, surely thinking he's scared me off. But when he sees me return wearing nothing but glasses and boxer briefs wielding a green broom, he knows it's better to cut his losses and run. I swing at him whacking the deck a few times but he gets away. As he stops halfway across the yard to glare at me, I whack the deck railing again with the broom making a most satisfactory sound. He hightails it for the forest after that.

As I return to bed, victorious, Anke tells me that I'm much louder with a broom than the raccoon raiding bird vittles. Ungrateful wench. I bet she couldn't do half so well with a mop.

Posted by Scotty at 8:03 PM

[RyCy04]

Living in a duplex in Ames when I was in college we were outside throwing the football around when something jumped out of the grass at me. It was a baby squirrel that had fallen out of the tree. We kept it, named it Fuzzy Nuts, and fed it formula. If you wore a shirt with a pocket, she would curl up in it and fall asleep. Unfortunately she gnawed on a candle and that killed her. For future reference, squirrels shouldn't eat candles.

[clones_jer]

Originally Posted by RyCy04

Living in a duplex in Ames when I was in college we were outside throwing the football around when something jumped out of the grass at me. It was a baby squirrel that had fallen out of the tree. We kept it, named it Fuzzy Nuts, and fed it formula. If you wore a shirt with a pocket, she would curl up in it and fall asleep. Unfortunately she gnawed on a candle and that killed her. For future reference, squirrels shouldn't eat candles.

That is tragically funny. I laughed, but I felt bad about it.

[IcSyU]

Originally Posted by clones_jer

That is tragically funny. I laughed, but I felt bad about it.

I'm in the same boat.

[CyinCo]

In CO, we had a muskrat get stuck in our window well. I got it out with a snow shovel. Aggressive as hell. My beagle was going nuts. The dog wanted to kill that thing in a bad way.