.22 air rifle...I have the RWS... a shot to the head=game over...trust me...i know ...you can't play games with pests...you either eliminate them or they'll never quit. Same with rabbits, squirrels, etc...

Raccoons are fairly easy to trap. I keep 3 traps baited with apples all year long. You have to get to them, before they get to you. This applies to all varmints, if you're going to get any fruit from your labors. I have a large garbage can full of water, that I drown them in, so they die quickly.

I tried drowning one once and it was painful to watch so I invested in a 1,000 FPS pellet gun which when a pellet is properly placed sends the animals into death throws immediately. A much kinder death than is likely to await anyone in natural circumstances.

Don't mind drowning squirrels because they do drown almost immediately but a coon has a slower matabolism and can hold out for a few very painful looking minutes.

The soft hearted people (my former self) trap and relocate them but this is supposed to be one of the cruelest fates of all, as the animals will be driven out by established populations. It is also illegal out of fear of spreading rabbis and such.

You can hirer a licensed trapper and deal with it that way but he will be a long term employee.

I trap coon as well. But for one small tree something like a chicken wire cage would work. Coon don't chew their way through wire but are strong. Four T posts and some chicken wire and you have won. If that's your only issue, not deer as well, the wire only needs to be in place from about a month before harvest.

If the Oceanna is like the few people I know in Seattle she will not be willing to bring harm to the coons.

As the time gets close the chickenwire cage is the best no harm option. If you add some noise makers to it, it might wake you up to run them off with a broom.

You could also buy an electric fence set-up and make several rings around the tree

Raccoons are actually a disease threat to humans and extremely high populations around suburban areas needs to be checked by any ecological reasoning, even if they didn't carry rabies and some pathogen that can cause blindness in children and others if they accidentally rub any coon feces in their eyes.

They wipe out bird nests (that's right animal lovers- including song birds) and have so few natural predators that the main natural means of population control is rabbi epidemics.

The people of Seattle are probably on the high IQ end of the nations tree hugging population (not poking fun- I'm a major tree hugger) so I'm sure many Seattlites would be willing to pitch in for a better population balance of this amazingly successful species.

Show your loyalty to the green planet and don your raccoon coats!

funny posts here....anyway, laying in wait can be a very time-consuming and frustrating proposition. I would trap or fence...as F stated. I am presently trying to trap a crapping opposum (he craps in my bird fountain!). He will die...

Oh, I should have mentioned that I trap and then shoot with the high powered pellet gun. That way I can place the pellet precisely.

I was once attacked by a mother in broad daylight when I approached a trap holding her cub and am lucky I got a very good shot off just in time and dropped her (I'm generally a poor shot). No signs of rabbis, just motherly instinct, I assume.

Oceanna is *exactly* like the people you know in Seattle, and she will not be willing to bring harm to the 'coons, as long as they don't hurt my dogs (and they never have). You got that right. Oceanna draws the line at the borders of her house -- spiders in the house are dead meat, as would be rats if they dared come in (and she feels like she'll go to Hell even for that). Let Mother Nature sort out the outdoors.

I just want my apples.

The chicken wire cage sounds like something even this ol' grandma could do by herself. That could solve the problem because the tree is so little, and the cage wouldn't have to be up there year 'round.

Thanks!

One more idea because I did some research on the computer . . .

Have any of you tried the water scarecrow? I went to bed laughing last night after watching the video, seeing the funny pictures, and reading some of the hilarious stories here, and I highly advise a visit to this page if you want some good laughs:

http://www.amazon.com/Contech-CRO101-Scarecrow-Activated-Sprinkler/dp/B000071NUS/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Would that work on raccoons?

Anyhow trapping is efficient when you have a population of raccoons exerting a continuous pressure. My neighbor used to trap 5 a week. But for these kind of one off events, trapping is less efficient (I use melon rind in the HavaHart trap). The chicken wire is a little trickier, at the very least you should dig up the surrounding lawn and continue the CW into the soil, and outward at a right angle, to prevent digging.
They dig well, specially now that they know what is in there.

What really always works, and is removable after the harvest, is an electric fence. It needs to be done well, with alternated wires and one hot wire as close to the ground as possible. It also needs the wildlife type of fence, not the cattle type. It does not kill anybody, and the dogs learn instantly to stay away.

If you have access to a deer cam, you can find out just when your problem is coming around.

Glib, thanks for the additional details about the chicken wire. An electric fence did occur to me but I'm not sure what components I'd need. I don't know if the raccoons are jumping over to it from the fence, or climbing up from the ground. I did a hot wire a foot off the ground to stop doggy fence fighting years ago in my last house and one of my dogs got zapped. After that she decided it was safer to potty in the house and I had a dickens of a time re-training her to go out, gentle little soul that she was. That was a big oops.

Franktank, gee I wish I did, but I don't. Anyway it was just that one night when they stole all my apples. Other than that, nothing. I even talked with my neighbor today and he says they never bother his garden, but they did take tiny bites out of apples that were in a box on his deck last year.

I'm thinking more and more about that water scarecrow.

This post was edited by oceanna on Mon, May 6, 13 at 0:50

I feel your pain as last year the raccoons got every single one of my table grapes before I had one! I also have had total devestation on certain peach trees (not sure if it's raccoons or squirrels).

Like most of the posts above, I'm doing a lot of trapping, and I'm doing it nearly year 'round instead of just when things are getting ripe.

Last year, as my peaches were ripening, I put up temporary wire cages around them. I then covered the top with bird netting.

I had great results with this method (including putting traps near the trees) last year. I'd simply move the cage from tree to tree as they ripened.

I know a motivated racoon could get through this pretty easily, but maybe it just slowed them down a bit or confused them.

well, not killing is work. can you give more detail? first, is the fence conducting? second, how much room is between fence and tree, and how clear of weeds is it?

As a person who keeps chickens, I am sorry to tell you that chicken wire won't work. Raccoons have tough little hands and they can rip holes in chickenwire very easily.

We use hardware cloth rather than chicken wire to thwart coons. Electric works well too. Smear a little peanut butter on some foil and wrap it on the electric wire.

When Mr Coon grabs ahold of it you'll hear him high tailing it back to the woods at breakneck speed. Screaming like a little girl all the way. He won't be back and hopefully he'll tell all his friends.

Sorry - but I'm just envisaging the 'rabbi epidemics' which Harvestman tells us occasionally hit the raccoon population. Childish, I know .....

Har! you are all funny!
Poor doggy. Made me laugh out loud.
I also envisioned hasidic rabbi epidemics in an orchard....
I second that raccoons will shred chicken wire. My chickens agree as well.
I just got a water scarecrow to keep the pooping cats away. I kind of doubt it would deter a raccoon, tho.
There are electric fence kits that are a prepared unit that you unroll and set up. Sounds like a good idea.
Trapping and dispatching - maybe you can find someone who would like to buy the pelts.

Amazing people are willing to take an animals life over a a box of apples they could buy for $20.00 or less.

Are you sure it was raccooons that took "every single apple"? I have racoons in my yard all the time, they typically eat a little then move on to something else. My guess is if your apples all disappeared when they were perfect for picking it was a much larger pest........the two legged upright mammal type.

RM

As a person whose dealt with many kinds of wildlife on many sites in an adversarial position for almost 50 years, I can tell you that animals that behave in one manner on one spot don't necessarily in another.

Squirrels jump higher one place than another and deer certainly browse higher. Some sites they learn to knock the high fruit off trees by bucking the trunks (the deer- not the squirrels).

I've seen chickens protected with a chicken wire fence successfully. I've also seen coons the size a medium size dog- bet if that animal is starving he will go through chicken wire- if he knows there's an available bowl of dog food nearby or an easy access garbage can, he might not bother.

I suspect any coon lusts more for chickens than apples. I know that they usually leave mine alone but always try to get the plums and peaches.

My grandpa and I have an amazing plum tree. Last year, we lined the entire yard around the tree with chicken wire. You just lay it flat on the ground. Simple, easy, and the raccoons hated it. They have such sensitive feet and they don't like stepping on the wire. It worked for us. Good luck!

I had the same problem on my plum tree. I broke down and bought an electric fence. No more coons and no deaths. I move it from tree to tree when necessary. Trapping and killing is only temporary. They will return.

Trapping and killing doesn’t solve the problem as these animals are resource animals, meaning if there is a good source, you’ll attract the amount of animals that your fruit can feed. With the population being what it is, you’ll be trapping and shooting forever. For those who think they’ve killed their way out of this problem, you’re wrong. The animals aren’t talking to each other warning them that your house is dangerous; if there’s a food source, they’ll always return.

This is a very old post but I would just mention that where the OP lives, killing raccoons is illegal and any trapping must be done only with live or Hav-A-Hart traps. And then you have the issue of what to do with the trapped coon........

Electrified fencing is effective and relatively easily done. Friends who lived almost in downtown Seattle - a highly populated urban area - had a small fish pond in their entry courtyard that was decimated by nightly visits from raccoons until they installed an electrified fence around it.

Urban dwelling raccoons are highly adaptable and intelligent animals. And with few natural predators aside from cars and the occasional dog. I live in a much more rural area very close to Seattle and raccoon issue are much less of a concern here as the coyotes keep populations in check (as do cars....too many raccoon bodies along the side of the road). I rarely have any issues with raccoons in my garden but the deer are another problem altogether!! And do far more damage than any raccoon!!