Please don't relocate raccoons!
They are such a pain in the butt to catch once "educated". ADC guy speaking here.

Relocating them is fine so long as they are not breathing anymore when doing so...

I have had them return from nine miles away years ago. So, you are asking whether more will keep coming. You have caught 4. What have you got to lose if you keep trapping them?

I would put up with it for couple months more and then trap them for fur. Then catch as many as you can. If you don't care about fur, keep trapping till they are gone and you will have your answer. If coons in the yard are an absolute no no, just keep a live trap set after they are gone. You have the luxury of doing that since it is your yard.

Not exactly. I had the raccoons there first and then put out the traps. The lure was to draw them right to the traps.

No, not relocating. But I understand there are some things that we can't talk about here on Trapperman....

That's likely going to be the plan. Other than the continual damage to the beds/garden, I have also become a little paranoid about the place becoming a latrine as not only do I have kids, but there have been modifications to the house that makes it much more easy for them to access the roof and I don't want to deal with the problem should they decide to try to set up house in the attic. Renovations were done pre-raccoon problems--had I known, I may have done things a bit differently. I will exclude where it is makes sense, like the space under the shed, but other than that, we'll deal with it one raccoon family at a time.

And I understand rodents will eat the scat and spread the roundworm in their turds. And there are rats, because of some birders in the area with multiple feeders--(understand raccoons eat seed too, forgot to mention that).

I'm not sure what to make of all this yet--a new adventure or to be a bit ticked: The raccoons were obviously always there, but had been invisible to us until we 'improved' things. It has been an educational experience, for sure, and the raccoons brought me here which has allowed me to appreciate a whole new way of looking at things, so there is a bright side. Maybe just not if you're a raccoon....

"I know that dead carp is around here somewhere. The whole garden smells like him!"

I have never read any information on this,,,,, Do you have a source/link for this information..... would make a good selling point for add on rodent control.........

It wasn't said exactly, so I'm going to clarify.

If you are trapping raccoons in the wild, you need smelly stuff like fish oil to attract raccoons to your traps, but if you're in the city, you just put the trap with some desirable food in it near where they hang out and they'll find it quite easily?

And could a raccoon in a standard suburban 60 foot wide lot could find your cage from across the yard without any other attractants? (Assume cat food as bait). Not that I'd put the cage across from where I think they are, but am just wondering about how good they are at finding things....

And thanks again for all the help.

I will try to remember where I read this. I said, "I understand" and not "know" because "I read it on the internet so it must be true."

I did a quick search and found this:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28732456
https://vtfishandwildlife.hosted.civicli...n-Roundworm.pdf
An excerpt from the last link:

If another animal, such as a rodent
or bird, ingests the embryonated eggs, the larvae will
wander in the animal’s body and can encyst (create and live in
a protective structure) within tissue, but will not
develop into adult worms. These animals are known as
intermediate hosts because the hosts themselves do
not develop disease, but raccoons can become infected
by ingesting animals containing encysted larvae.

So it looks like the answer is more like, rodents don't spread the eggs, but they can, if they contain the larvae, spread it to other raccoons.

These weren't the links that I had originally looked at, but will update should I come across the original info again.

A 60' wide yard? They will find the trap, no matter where it is, with a stinky bait.

Is cat food considered stinky?

I have to ask, because if you have teenagers, you know that stinky is not so well defined....

yes, cat food is "stinky". I find cat food very effective to attract raccoons, it tends to be more fragrant than dog food.

Wait till there prime, then trapp every single raccoon you can. Trapp from November 1 (or whenever they prime up) and trap until seal ends. Your not getting paid as it's your yard. So catch them when prime and learn as much as you can for future ADC work

4 is nothing. I witnessed a family of 8 grubbing my front lawn, literally destroyed my lawn during the off season.
I took 6 of them. I still have at least 2 on my cams. 1 still makes a mess of my garbage.

This season I'll get another 2 or 3.


I have heard stories of exterminators taking 20 off 1 property.

I haven't seen them on camera for a while--the apples next door are mostly rotten on the ground now. But fall is coming and with less natural food available, and with more rain and the ground softening, I kind of expect them to be back digging up my yard.

I'm sure there are more than 4 out there, but we'll see!

I had 2 coons on my camera all summer. All the sudden, out of no where. I have 6 on my cams..

This is after I took 6 off the property in the past few years.

I kept two live trap going all spring, summer and fall. Got 22 raccoons that year. I have not read all the post. Are you going to get rid of them for good, NO! If I see any signs of a raccoon out go the traps.

Thought I'd update the 'Endlessness' of it all.

From what I could tell, there were two local families and once they were taken care of, there has been almost no sign of any others. One a few weeks ago on the cam which hasn't been seen since.

I suspect, with the warm weather we've been having, they are more interested in 'looking for love' at the moment and that I'll be seeing more of them in 4-6 weeks when they start getting hungry for something else. Then later in the summer when families start coming through for something different after getting their fill from the neighbour's fruit trees..

I took a dozen coons from the same set this season. Just kept re-making the set. There is at least 1 more on the camera's.
At this point, it's getting boring. There is no challenge to coon catching any more. Even though every one has been prime fur, there is no money in it.

I will call the season early. Move onto something else.

Between $250 to $280 at a minimum coon removal jobs...I'd say there is plenty of money in it.