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.