If raccoons are raiding your feeders by night, these 10 tips are for you. If you have other suggestions, please send them to us. Most backyard feeder operators can use all the help they can get in fighting this mammalian marauder.
10. Understand that they are smarter than you. Add to that stronger, more persistent, bolder, and hungrier. Raccoons have all night to undo the measures you've taken to keep them away from your feeders. For instance, a friend of mine watched a raccoon repeatedly slide down a newly greased feeder pole. It then walked to her children's sandbox, dabbed its paws in the sand, and scooted right up the pole!
9. Take in your feeders every night. It's a pain in the neck, but it certainly eases your frustration come morning. A closed garage is ideal. If you can devise a raccoon-proof metal garbage can outside, you can put your feeders in that overnight.
8. When 'coons fly. If there is food at the end of the rainbow, raccoons will fly. No feeder pole is too small or slick, almost no baffle insurmountable. Raccoons will try seemingly impossible feats, and usually gain access where it seems no furred animal could.
7. Memories. Once rewarded, a raccoon will remember you forever. If you take your feeder inside for 10 nights straight, then you forget on the 11th, you can be sure the 'coons will have been checking the whole time and will be only too happy to clean you out.
6. June is the cruelest month. The worst offenders at bird feeders are lactating female raccoons, who are eating for four or five. Just before their young are weaned, female raccoons are fearless in their hunger and will often make forays into feeding stations in broad daylight. Trapping or otherwise removing these females can doom their young to starvation, or worse, send them right to your feeding station to quintuple your problems.
5. NEVER feed raccoon deliberately! If you have a compost heap, don't throw meat scraps on it. Pets fed outside are at risk of losing their meals, or their lives, to scrappy raccoons. Feed pets indoors only.
4. Put out less, lose less. In summer, it's a good idea to use smaller feeders that can be emptied in a single day. If you're feeding on platforms, feed only as much seed as the birds will clean up by nightfall. Downsize your suet feeder, with just a small chunk of suet, so that it's easy to bring inside.
3. Remember rabies. Raccoons throughout the South, and now the Northeast, are increasingly carrying raccoon rabies, a disease that is always fatal to humans if contracted and left untreated. Don't take chances by attempting to chase, challenge, or otherwise make contact with your nighttime raiders.
2. News travels! That one cute 'coon that begs for food outside the kitchen screen will quickly multiply to a dozen or more, and some people who feed raccoons get 30 at once!
1. Dirty is as dirty does. Raccoons receiving nightly treats at your feeder will often thank you by raiding your nest boxes, digging up any newly planted or jest watered plants in your garden, stripping your fruit trees, tomatoes, and melon vines, or making a communal latrine of your front stoop. Any combination of these, or all of them, is possible. Do your best to dry up their food supply before the raccoons in your vicinity kick into high gear.