The raccoons routinely come up & eat the dry cat food we put out for the outside cats. They usually come up after dark when it's tough to get pictures of them, but every now & then I see one during the day. This one is a young momma coon. She watched me through the back door while she ate alone, cautiously watching the back yard for signs of movement.
4 comments:
She looks skinny. Do you think she is? We took the dogs down to the river this evening. Yuka jumped in and tried to catch a beaver! There were 3 of them spread out in the water. They kept slapping the water with their tails. Remember the beavers you used to have?
I love raccoons and think they are so cute! We have quite a few where we live and they are really fat. Since we got chickens I tend to worry about having them around more. Raccoons will pop the heads off of chickens sometimes. A lady near my sister in law lost her whole flock that way.
Barb ~ Yes, she does look skinny. She's young, maybe a year old, and just had her first litter. We've been watching her grow up. The coons we have here aren't nearly as big & fat as the ones we had in VA Bch. Remember those ones?
That's funny about the dogs vs. beaver. We have some beaver at a river way down in the woods here. I don't go out there often, we have to cross another river in the ATV to get there & sometimes you get all muddy doing so, if the water's high.
Robin ~ I love raccoons, too. I love how they use their hands so well. Several years ago we lived in VA beach & had tame coons that would sit in our lap & we hand fed them. They were so sweet. But here we want chickens, so it's always in our minds that chickens & coons don't mix. Plus Randy wants to free-range the chickens during the day. I'm afraid the coons will have a free-for-all! This is my one concern about our chicken plans.
You haven't had any problems with your chickens with coons?
-Lynn
No we haven't had any problems yet. We make sure that the chickens are put up every night in their coop. Since raccoons are mostly nocturnal animals having the chickens out during the day should be fine. Some nights that we have gotten home late, when they were out, I always rush back to the coop to count the chickens and lock them in. I am afraid every time that one of the coons will have gotten into the coop. So far so good. Hopefully it will stay that way.
That is pretty amazing that you had a tame one you could feed.
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