I have two jobs where I have some babies that are inaccessible without some major construction which neither customer wants.I could run mom through a positive set whenever I want. Babies aren't mobile enough yet.

Vanish didn't work.

Was thinking about nabbing mom, letting her ride around with me for a day and putting her back in the hole in hopes that would traumatic enough to move her family on. Or I wait until babies are mobile.

Unless anyone has any other ideas.

I'm a "wait until they're mobile" guy myself but I'll be watching the posts with interest.

I'd wait.

I have heard people have good success scaring mama by catching her. Worse come to worse You can catch her again later

I am also a wait until they are mobile guy. I had a female raccoon blow out a secure vent instead of going through my trap before. Trap smart/shy raccoons are not fun to deal with why make more of them?

Doing a skunk job now that I think may be babes involved, under crawlspace which I have gotten in to and ther are 5 den holes, one looks active. My question I would like to add is how do you know when thre mobile , besides the obvious the are seen out

Why are you trying to catch babies? I thought this was a wildlife control forum.

I would reapply the vanish to the entry point, mix a little with some water and put it in a syringe with a heavy gauge needle push it thru the dry wall and squirt it on top of the the actual nest. Put a wildlife caller in the attic and play some baby raccoon distress calls and some aggressive coon sounds. If you taped your dog barking at a cornered varmit put that in the attic. Take chimney rods or come other extending device rubber band a paper towel on the end. Apply some vanish and stick it as close to the bedding site as possible. If you can get pretty close touch her with a cattle prod, frog gig or taser. Anything that will make the attic an unsafe place.
The question of skunk babies. There option is a little easier because of the limited places that the babies can go. Even the smallest ones can wiggle to the opening after a couple days then go back in. At the entrance I would sink a big coffee can or small bucket for them to drop in in case they are to small to trip a trap or push thru a colony muskrat trap. The best would be after you catch the mother dig up the den and grab them.
The other thing on skunk dens I like to do is set a positive t set so that after the mother is caught the other 2 or more traps can catch all or most of the babies with the rest crawling all over the traps.
A concrete stoop den complicates it a little.
I would cover the traps a head of time also.

This was interesting timing. I had a guy call a few days ago who had caught the female raccoon but then a few days later heard noises, same old drill right.

I was in another part of the state so I referred him to the book telling him in his area only a certain company was available when we weren't.

He was beside himself about the young and that he had trapped these in there after relocating the sow miles away into the mountains.

*****

Here is the punchline.

He calls me tonight desperate for help, the other company told him because raccoon cubs have to be put down (can't be rehabbed due to rabies policy) they
said they would just wait a few more days until they died and come remove the carcasses from the chimney.....

How many folks in this profession use that tactic? I've never heard that for raccoons in the chimney and can't believe these folks who get lots of raccoon calls
are doing it...

I'm going there in the morning to remove them live and euthanize them...

Thoughts?

Lazy and cruel. No professional would wait til an animal dies to remove it.

If drywall was the only thing in my way this wouldn't be a post. The first job is a 3 hole chimney. Two holes are capped and go to fireplaces. The third hole goes to nowhere, uncapped of course.(might have been an old furnace at one time, now there is high efficiency on the other side of the house). Can't see all the way down because its a clay tile flue with two foot joints and the mason must have been drinking on the job. Can't even hit the bottom with a long catch pole it is so crooked. I put the Vanish on all four sides of the flue and dropped paper balls with Vanish on do the flue. They squawked pretty loud when I did that. Hair stuck all over the Vanish on top of the flue so I know she got some on her.

The second job is a crawlspace made out of block, raccoons entering through a vent on one side of the house. On the other end of the house is an attached garage converted to living space. Someone knocked a single block out and ran an auxiliary heat duct just inside the garage side of the block wall. Raccoon is sliding through next to the heat duct but inaccessible to humans.

I am surprised to see the amount of wait it out responses. I may try positive setting the chimney and rereleasing mom as there is no possible fallout, if I have to positive set again I can. Nowhere else she can squirt out of there. Don't really feel like giving a raccoon the run of a crawlspace again, though. Too many ways that can possibly go bad.

As far as why release an educated raccoon? I put down all my raccoons with that being one of my reasons for doing so. However, there are companies that release most of their raccoons. I feel in light of the possibility of solving this for the homeowner it might be worth the risk. Still evaluating.

I'm with you on this one.
Have never heard anyone advocate letting animals die intentionally before attempting to remove them.
I'm claustrophobic and hate working in tight locations like fireplaces but you do what you have to do.

I have a hard time believing that your competitor would be dumb enough to say something that stupid. It's so easy to locate all the

babies when they are crying and it's so easy to get them out. I doubt you'll ever refer him.

The only other thing I can think of is that you competition is from Illinois or Missouri and they couldn't take the babies out

because they weren't doing any damage!

My guess is a Rabies policy that requires the young to be euthanized also doesn't allow relocation.

Bob brings up a really great point. If your competitor is correct about the rabies policy than I guess relocating Mrs. Raccoon to the

mountains wasn't legal either. The young couldn't have rabies unless their mother did, correct?

Now that you have given a description of the crime scene I would re-vanish and use an aggressive raccoon sound. If that didn't work I would probably wait for them to be mobile. If I was going to try releasing her I would keep her at least a day to see if the young will mobilize so you can deal with them.

Not true Paul. Any time an animal is in a structure we can remove it. The law would NOT allow removing a raccoon with kits from a den tree.... as that's where raccoons are supposed to be.

We have plenty of regs in Illinois that are very good. Just a couple that are questionable, and those were the ones "carried over" from fur trapping regs. Our DNR folks actually take a lot of input from WCO's regarding the laws and methods.

Missouri is a free-for-all. Basically no regs, no permits, nothing. Anything goes, as long as the customer tells the county CPO they have a problem and are going to deal with it, or hire someone to deal with it.

Try real urine out of boar coon you've caught on past job pretty simple to catch urine

Paul I'd never refer to them but they were his only option and I described squalling and he knew the sound over the phone.

I'll never do it again for anything.

I was honestly just taken aback and though I know the rules about second hand news this guy has been a straight shooter so far he admitted catching the sow and hauling her off to the mountains. Once he knew there were young he was shocked but wanted to do the right thing even if that ends in euthanasia.

You'll certainly never hear me say there aren't animals you can't get to, structures, slabs, etc... Can preclude but this company literally looked down the chimney and told him there are three I there and if you wait till next Friday they will be dead and we can just get them out then, since the policy is they die anyway.

Not sure if it was a tech or the boss but either way I do believe the guy is shoot in straight on what they said.

Just crazy...

I remembered too in thinking of this a couple years ago a lady reported to a colleague of mine that he was still hearing noises in her chimney, turned out the same company had capped it and left a dead young of year in there...

Will be curious to see how this is setup tomorrow...

To the rabies policy, the specific policy doesn't allow relocation, euthanasia isn't required unless you need to remove the animal, if you were excluding and releasing on site just for example you don't have to euthanize rabies vectors.

The homeowner loophole is that while it isn't technically legal for him to catch and move it, homeowners pretty much have an open ticket to do as they please on ther own property and I've yet to meet anyone interested in enforcing these policies on your average Joe or Jane who are moving animals every day around the state.

No matter the policy telling someone lets wait till they expire as the outcome is the same is definitely a problem. We all know how this would read in the paper or on the news if quoted...

Mostly I don't understand why they wouldn't make the effort to grab them up. From the homeowners description they are literally mobile and trying to find a way to climb the chimney while he's looking in with a flashlight.

Just bizarre, though this company seems to be moving away from most wildlife from what I keep hearing... Which seems to be a good thing for wildlife if they don't pick up the phone.

Oh and we are open for raccoon in structures as Ron mentioned and technically no proof of damage is required though I believe the dept prefers that to be the case.

To the rabies question Paul, technically the area this is happening in hasn't seen raccoon rabies since the 70's on paper, in theory yes with exposure only to the sow she would be their only source of potential inoculation.

However the policy is clear and doesn't concern itself with what if, it is clear what must occur if removal is necessary.

Bob sorry or hijacking the thread to just was timed right for this discussion.

I have plenty of homes that are either on grade or have old sunken crawlspace a that you can't actually fit into. Your scenario strikes a chord I'm sure with plenty about what to do and what the outcome may be. I think Nate K used to catch the sow and hold 24 hrs on site, then released.

I'd worry if you went off site for some motivation that you may have a break in that sows need to return and move them. On site keeps that familiarity but the confinement adds the incentive.

He seemed to have good luck with it when stuck in this type of scenario.

Lately most of my calls are where the homeowner already employed genius to remove the sow and now they hear the results scrambling around...

Maternity season brings plenty of tough scenarios.

Good topic.

Good topic! I was just kidding Ron. I get a little slap-happy in the late evenings. I do recall at least one job where we had to take

a family out of a den tree and close the hole. The female was quite bold with both the kids and the pets and the tree was very close

to the house. The customer said they never had litters in it before.

Been playing with this little gadget to reach into tight places to retrieve live or dead animals.
Attached to a long cord you can drop it down between studs or a simple modification to a paint brush/paint pole adapter lets me attach it to the end of an expanding pole. Can reach a long way into a crawl space or attic even with holes as small as about 4"X 4" or so.
http://www.wildlifecontrolsupplies.com/animal/WCSBGR.html

Out of sight mole trap will do same thing

Went to the raccoon litter left to die site today, typical fireplace and chimney we see in this region about 16' deep. The 4 young of the year were just too short to be able to reach the first mortar rim inside the chimney though one was trying its best to make it up while I was trying to snare them and pull them up and into the porta kennel.

Ultimately after messing around an hour, I realized the quickest best way in this scenario with their relative size and the length of time they'd been in there was to go get the better half, pick up my supply of large glue boards (we don't use them unless snake inside house, otherwise we employ them for retrieval of dead animals or birds only).

Rigged to the extendable pole for the WCS net we have and literally 10 minutes later (and a whole bunch of veggie oil) the 4 were inside the kennel ready to be removed from the property.

I will never hesitate after this case to use the glue boards on live litters when needed, these 4 males each weighed around 2.5 lbs were born some time ago and this was weight after being in here for more than a week since the sow was relocated by the homeowner.

Took less than 30 seconds to pull each one up, pour some veg oil on the portions on the board, and into the kennel, very very little guard hair pulled and worked very very well, something that I will turn to first in the future when they aren't newborn and retrievable through the fireplace.

********

Keep in mind that 10 minutes it took to retrieve them and I know this other company has and uses glue boards, but were going to leave them until they expired. Which in the great shape they were in would have been quite a long time and the homeowner and his wife and two young kids were going to have to wait while listening to the squalling and noise until it stopped sometime in the future before calling company X back to retrieve the carcasses.

Low tech solution in this case produced quality results, did help immensely though to have the extra set of hands, one holding after pulling up and the other removing appendages from the glue.

Justin

Nice job Jason.
Hard to believe someone would willingly leave an animal to starve to death.
In fact that is probably pushing the line toward violation of state animal cruelty statutes here in NM.

Homeowner was already talking to a warden about the issue at a bare bones minimum someome needs a talking to but I doubt it will go any further.

Was just happy to help out myself I generally don't do much in this avenue and don't advertise for it either.

Justin, after a couple of thousand raccoons, you will get the hang of it. Are raccoon jobs fairly rare in you area?

Wink, not rare but concentrated heavily I water corridors though you will see them in the desert too, more people, water and large cottonwood trees and quality habitat in the river and stream areas of the central and southern portions of the state.

Because I don't like the idea of trap checking and so forth versus bats and birds and exclusion model of this industry, I have avoided these types of calls of raccoon and skunk (lots of skunk calls).

I have to admit I've literally looked at te inside of a fireplace as professional 3 times in the last 3.5 years. Once for a pigeon and once for another litter in a chimney where they were very young and had already expired.

My first call is always to my good buddy Eric to pick his brain about the variety of things he's tried or that other folks he has talked to through the years have suggested.

I tried for about an hour to get enough movement out of them to get a cable on them and pull the up before realizing the better option was wife, glue boards and vegetable oil....

(Not sure most of the world outside out industry would put those three things in a sentence! Lol)

In our state there is a contract with our G&F that is bid out every year for 6 counties for raccoon based on a per complaint basis.

So while I've had calls for raccoon I generally in these areas refer them to the state however in this case the result was this...

So going to move ahead with trying to pick up more of these, we have the channels and I have other gear that has been stored for dealing with the cases where the sow is still on site.

Still don't want to take my eye off exclusion of my primary interest, as a solo operator who wants time with my better half and doing things we love to do in hesitant to open that other area without a tech or two I can trust and I'm not there yet though certain people keep telling me I need to be.

I appreciate this forum and .info for always having a few guys willing to share openly and through pm.

They say it takes 1,000 hours to master any craft or skill, I've got a ways to go on all fronts but I'm workin on it.

An outa site would work but I do think that booger grabber has a place on the truck. A frog or fish grabber from Bass Pro is a handy tool also. The glue board is great. We're all a bunch of McGuiver's.

I am kind of slow I guess. How are you attaching the glue board to the pole you are using to get things out of chimneys. Thank you.

Jim,

I know your not slow from all the info you've given on here through the years, I reach personally for
gorilla tape.

I want the board to stay attached so I go a bit nuts with it to assure it stays on.

I'm using the large glue boards that go with the cahaba snake traps and when I employ them in the past and in this instance,
I bend the board in half so I have about 12" of area that will be pealed back to expose glue and the other 12" is taped like crazy to the pole, taping both the front and back of the board to the pole and doing some wraps as well.

I'll try to take a pic later today of what it looks like though I'm sure you get the gist at this point.

After taping you end up with the pole in my case I use the pole that comes with the WCS long bat-bird net which has three extensions.

The glue board ends up being basically like a shelf that Aligns to the floor of the area.

One thing I try to avoid of course in this scenario or removing dead birds or mammals with this is getting stuck to anything else.

In the chimney I scraped the bottom of the board against the wall (the non sticky side), all the way down till the opening where the young were and the. Let it fall to the floor ready for them.

Simply pushed it over toward the first two who were aggressively defensive and their paws were on it in a hot minute.

About 30 seconds later they were in the kennel box after a quick veggie only experience.

Once the first one was on its way up the rest were actually in this case wanting to follow and so was quicker to get them on the board.

I will note I tried with a smaller board chunk first like 4" square and they managed to not get caught, so we upped the board size and that worked to remove the leverage it seemed.

I don't know if all glue boards are created equal but I'll be reordering this week from Alan as I want this same effect and no stronger or weaker a hold.

Love gorilla tape!!

Justin