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