Been living here in the country for over 23 years and every year I have to move some wild life away from here for they cause too much damage its getting where I can't afford to put up with them.

  Squirrels and Racoons can cause thousands of bucks damage every year. It would take me a few hours to explain what damage they can cause.

  We feed a few cats, out door cats ,just to keep the mice and rats population down but the squirrels and Racoons are the worse problems so I have to trap them and move them away from our place!!!!

 

Some people out here on the lake likes to feed the squirrels for they get their jollies off watching them.  The neighbor across the cove just had to pay 10,000 dollars to have his house rewired because the squirrels ate all the insulation off and left the wires necked.   

   The Racoons are much worse than that in dollars .. Right after we moved a double wide house on our property  they got under the house and made holes in lots of places up in the insulation..... My wife kept tell me she could hear animals under the house but I just thought they had gotten past the under pinning that I put up two years after she heard the noises..

   So I would take a month or so each time this would take place until I said that is enough for my age finally got to where crawling on one knee for the other one got operated on and doc. told me to never get down on that knee cap ever again.

   I couldn't set a trap out on the back deck because  the cats was the ones getting trapped so I came up with the solution.   

   Brillant minds either wifes or mine and two days ago I built a ledge up where the cats could not climb but it only took two days I trapped  mommy and the two youngins were all over the cage wanting in there where momma and the cat food was waiting for them..... I think it says somewhere a person can only trap one Racoon a day and can only take them 10 miles or less to let them out  but hey, its worth it to get rid of them... I don't think any of my neighbors  helps in any way and I have told them any time they see chunks of foam flotation floating off then they have Racoons under their docks also. but hey, they have money and just ignore what I say. In the picture Mommy sitsI inside the trap and her two kids are all over that trap.

   Hope no one thinks I am cruel but hey I don't harm them and soon I will reunite her with her babies. 

smallpatch

 

Not cruel in my book Jess.  How do the raccoons get up to the trap?

And, how do you easily get the trap opened up to release them?  I know how a caged coon acts..

I don't mind killing them (raccoons). We are literally overrun with the critters, if you try to grow sweet corn you need an electric fence to keep them away. If you have a bird feeder they will clean it out overnight if it's not mounted in a way to keep them off. They raid my lily ponds looking for frogs (which we love having), crap all over the deck and stairs, and often try to get the grease tray out of the grill and make a huge mess with it. I've taken to using a Conibear trap (sometimes called a body grip trap) which kills them instantly and i set up an enclosure to keep at least the larger pets animals away from it...we don't have cats so no concerns there. Our area needs more coon hunters but they seem to be few and far between anymore. We also have skunks and possums, but generally speaking they aren't a problem. Once in a while the skunks will tear the yard up looking for grubs but that's about it.

Cal, once he charges one time inside the trap he usually settles down and waits calmly until I go to take him out of the pickup. The grown ones are heavy and the trap has to be lifted up to clear where its sitting and wifee usually helps sit it on the floor. Racoons always craps all over the trap but the squirrels don't.

  A family or two always nest each year between the floor of my dock and the foam bricks about 6" from the bottom of the floor.

 Momma would get ready to have their young by digging out a nest about 10 to 15" deep in the foam blocks which are 20"  deep. And it seems like they always need a new den or nesting area so here goes more foam holes....This is what has been holding up the older docks until the plastic tubs the same size as the 4x8 blocks of foam came on the market.. So my dock keeps sinking closer to the water. Now the foam is illegal, and the hollow plastic tubs is about a fortune more than the foam use to be at 250 a block or close to that price.

  Funny story about buying the foam in Forth Worth and taking them back to where I was building the dock, which was on the extra large parking lot of the go-cart track in Odessa ...

This 20 pieces of foam on my tandem axle 20 foot long trailer made the foam stick up about 10 or 12 foot in the air. Wife had just bought a  new 93 or 94 Ford explorer like an SUV now so this is what I went to pick up the foam in. I think it had a 4 cylinder motor with no power.  Its a wonder I didn't waste the transmission for 20 to 30 miles and hour all this distance and this speed was determined  how fast between the two speeds I could go depending on which way the wind was blowing.

 

Then had a house mover deliver it to the lake, 240 miles .The dock was way too wide to drive down the interstate which goes from Odessa to Abilene  So they had to go on small county roads the hole trip that the highway dept gave us a map and said this is your route, period no other roads are available for your dock. 

     Son was the rear look out driving about 1/4 mile behind the dock and house mover.  He later told me how many sign post and mail boxes they knocked over for the dock is 24 foot wide... I never gave it a thought while building the dock but I got the idea to build the dock in Odessa and would have a house mover customer that brought his kids out to the go-cart track and we would talk while the kids was driving the carts.. we talked over a price and he said he would have to get a permit and that would be included in the price of 1200. And his mentioning how many Mondays, when the track was closed, would it take to build the dock plus taking all the pipe and sheet iron and 2x6 flooring for the dock at the lake and him saying this would probably take 5 years or so on each Monday that came around!!!! He sure made a point that stuck in my little mind..

  We had been keeping the track open 7 days a week and close down at 11 each night and that went for 8 years. Then after 8 straight years of never closing the track I finally said we gonna close on Mondays and we did just that.  And every Monday no matter where we were I was thinking about all that money that was staying those peoples pockets!!!!!!

   Fred Hargis Jr,  we use to have trouble with the squirrels and the bird feeders. Now we keep two used plastic animal cracker containers from Sams hanging under the deck where water don't bother them so I have had these two hanging now for 20  years and never cleaning them,, It would look better  but.

  We only put black sun flower seeds in the feeders, buying the 20 pound sack and keeping it in the freezer in the garage and the only birds who goes in them are Cardinals, red birds, tit mouse, finches and every once in a while  doves.. which finds their way in and out except the doves and every once in a while we have to go out and tip the feeder over on its side until the dove finally gets out.. Doves are plenty dumb. When the red birds and the tit mouse have babies and after they learn to fly they will stand on the ridge of the container and wait for maw or paw to come out with a sun flower seed and will crack it open and feed them to the babies that is anxiously waiting for the seed... This is a joy just sitting is the house watching what goes on outside our windows. It takes a week or two for the young to be are taught how to get in and out of the feeder. 

   Every bird in our country use to hang around here but the trouble was each different species had their own favorite seed so they would pull the unwanted out and mostly go to waste for the seed would fall through the slits in the deck floor.. and probably attract mice and snakes? under the house for the deck has under pinning as the house and deck floors are all together.

  Cal the Racoons use the 2 3/8" oil field pipe as their safest highways to the feeders as some nest in the large trim that cover the ends of metal walls to the metal roof  which is about 8 or larger opening in each end and they go over the top of the house to the cat food on the other side of the house.. Yes Cal I do think about enclosing the 4 openings but hey I tell maw I'm just too busy.

  Half the time I keep the trap on the dock to catch the boarders down there and two traps would drive me crazy.