I found this guy climbing my walls

You all aren't using the proper anti coon medicine. Coyotes will put a serious hurt on them. They like the young ones best. Easy to catch and kill and likely tastier. The problem is when they thin out the coons severely and only the old tough adults are left they start eating pets and have been known to kill children.

Anyone who thinks coons are "cute" hasn't had a couple of coons rip the heads off all his chickens. They're smart devils. One goes to one side of the pen and freaks the chickens out, they run to the other side and the other coon reaches in and grabs the head and rips it off and eats it. I found decapitated chickens in the pen.

I have 2 cats and a Labrador for pets. The cats kill mice and the Lab retrieves my birds. They are GOOD pets.

MCgunner said:

I had a live trap set for coons. I had it out there for a good 3 months and caught and dispatched a coon nearly every night! I'd catch two a night if I set a leg hold trap for 'em, too. No use, can't thin the danged things out to any appreciable degree, so I gave up. Now I just leave 'em alone since I don't keep chickens anymore. I'll see 4 or 5 of 'em on my game camera at times. They're a scourge.

I trapped 'em around 1979-'80 and was getting up to 40 bucks a pelt for 'em. Too bad there's no market for fur anymore, at least not in Texas. I could make serious money in the winter on the things.

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I worked and managed the biggest Fur sale in Michigan for years. When prices were high a guy sold 200 xl and xxl coon for $50.00. My son that was helping me bag the fur coming off the table was trying to figure out how much that was. I told him $10,000 and to get these bagged as the guy had 150 outs. Those sold for $35.00. Sadly there is little to no market for any fur today causing the country to be over run with coon.

earlthegoat2 said:

Last year, where I work, which to put it generally, is land management, we were running into a sick coon every week for around two months. We are not authorized to dispatch them. We called the DNR, who happen to have a game warden office within two miles, the game warden came out walked right up to the coon and leashed it with the pole snare thingy and dumped it into a container in his truck and went away. Never heard anything from the DNR but there were rumors around the area about rabid coons and one instance made the news in town near where I live......which is ten miles from where I work.....

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Distemper is probably what the coon had. Rabies is not that common at least here in Michigan.

MCgunner said:

Anyone who thinks coons are "cute" hasn't had a couple of coons rip the heads off all his chickens. They're smart devils. One goes to one side of the pen and freaks the chickens out, they run to the other side and the other coon reaches in and grabs the head and rips it off and eats it. I found decapitated chickens in the pen.

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Ain't that the truth! I despise coons, possums, and skunks. They like to raid my chicken coop, and kill the quail that I so love to hunt and have worked hard to keep around the farm. So to combat the furry invaders, I take nightly walks around the chicken house with my good LED Mag-lite and the old Model 37 Winchester 16 gauge or Browning SA-22. Both have killed their fair share of nocturnal raiders, usually 1 or 2 each week. Less in the hot summer months it seems.

Regardless of what others say, these critters aren't pets, and aren't cute. They kill my livestock, eat my crops, destroy my property, and I won't abide that. So, as long as Winchester makes high brass 16 gauge shells, there won't be any of the d@mn things on my farm. There isn't a catch-and-release program here, that's for sure. That's just the way it is.

Mac

Coons are annoying, always getting into the traps meant for skunk, but the damn foxes are out and about to. Good size buck also eats around the bird feeders with a .44 on your hip it's awful tempting to take it, but it's not season yet. Stupid horned lizards are out and about to the annoyance of my wife y wife

I worked as a maintenance guy at a church camp years ago. Had some campers call me and say they had a coon in the middle of camp. I went up there and they had a baby one in exactly the same situation as the one in the OP, only it was a condensed orange juice can. I picked him up by the neck hide and it kinda stretched his neck out enough for me to pull the can off. He wasn't happy about me holding him like that but I imagine he was relieved to not be walking around looking at the inside of a can.

Back in the early 70s when I was at A&M, one of the things everyone did was sign up for a field trip/problems course to Saltio, Mexico through the Wildlife and Fisheries department. Being broke ALL of the time and barely managing to make my fees for the next semester while working up to 3 jobs and over the holidays (poor boy), I could never make that trip. Well, one Christmas, it made the Walter Chronkite news. Students were camping outdoors in their bed rolls when a rabid skunk got into the camp and bit several of 'em. They were quite remote there in Mexico and needed the shots. The military sent a medivac down there to get the afflicted Aggies and hauled 'em back to San Antonio for treatment. It was all over the news and I was quite happy it didn't involve me.

My mother-in-law is a super soft touch for animals. She is the person that dogs and cats will flock to in preference to everyone, including their owners and whoever feeds them daily.

When she was young, and her family lived on Caddo Lake, her "zoo" included a raccoon, a squirrel and a goat that was rescued from the butcher.

The raccoon's greatest sin was tearing into the back of the radio and removing all of the vacuum tubes, reportedly without damaging any. He did not organize or label for easy replacement.

The goat had some stories, too.

Regards,
Tom

In our young single days, two buddies found a kit with a dead momma and adopted it. For awhile, "Samantha" was the darling of the apartment complex. As she grew larger, she became very bitey to one and all. Sam went to the animal shelter once enough blood had been shed. Thanks for sharing that picture.