Raccoons might be cute, but they’re no good for your garden: here are tips on how to remove them from your yard.
Keep Raccoons Away from Your Crops
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How to Identify Raccoons
Raccoons are small mammals 2 to 3 feet in length and weighing about 10 to 30 pounds. Raccoons have distinct black “masks” on their faces, which often characterizes them as bandits. They have fluffy, ringed tails, and their bodies are varying shades of gray, with hints of light brown. The forepaws of raccoons resemble tiny human hands with five toes, which makes raccoons very dexterous.
Raccoons are nocturnal creatures, meaning that they feed at night. This might make it hard for you to identify them, as you might only see the damage they cause. Looking for raccoon tracks near the damage might also help you to identify them. Learn more about identifying animal tracks.
Photo Credit: M. Sorrentino, University of Vermont. After a rainy night, five-toed tracks might appear in the mud around your garden. These raccoon tracks are easily distinguished from most other four-toed mammals.
Raccoon Damage
If your lawn has a lot of holes in it, or your mulch pile has a lot of holes, you probably have a nightly visitor. Raccoons will dig up lawns and mulch piles looking for insects to eat. They will also empty bird feeders, so keep an eye on your feeders to see if you have a raccoon problem. Additionally, raccoons are known to raid chicken coops, stealing eggs and even killing chickens.
Of course, if you have corn, there’s nothing more infuriating than finding stalks toppled and ears ripped open and half eaten. (Even more frustrating is the idea, offered by animal researchers, that raccoons are wasteful because they don’t really like sweet corn all that much; in fact, they seem to prefer sunflower seeds, dog food, and sardines.)
How to Get Rid of Raccoons
The persistence and proliferation of raccoons have inspired many solutions; one of them is bound to work for you. Here are tips from all our readers and staff! See what works for you.
- If your raccoon problem is persistent, you can set live raccoon traps in your garden and release the animal at least three miles away (check local and state laws first). Raccoons will eat virtually anything; try fish-flavored dry cat food, chicken necks, ears of corn, or whole peanuts for bait.
- To keep raccoons at a distance, try scattering blood meal around corn plants. Also, try sprinkling wood ashes around your plants.
- Grind up garlic, mix it with an equal portion of chili powder, and spread it around the garden. Frequent applications are needed.
- One reader says, “Hang shoes and clothes that smell of human perspiration around your garden or corn patch.” Similarly, “You can try to repel raccoons by putting dog hair or human hair around the garden.”
- Tune a radio to a rock station and set it in the middle of your garden and/or corn patch. Leave it on all night. The noise will scare away the raccoons.
- Put lights in the garden. A bright lantern will sometimes keep Sun-shy raccoons away.
- Plant enough corn for man and beast alike.
- Add some pinwheels and streamers to your garden to scare the creatures.
- Folk wisdom suggests that you spread newspapers around the perimeter of the garden.
How to Prevent Raccoons
- Build a good fence around your garden. Beware though, raccoons are agile and intelligent; make sure your fence will keep them out. You may need to install an electric fence. This is a good measure. A two-wire fence, with one wire four to six inches above the ground and the other at 12 inches, should be effective.
- If your home is near your garden, remove any possible food sources from the area, including pet food and bird seed. Buy garbage cans with locking lids and keep garbage inside if possible. Keep pet doors sealed shut between dusk and dawn. Cap your chimneys. Seal any holes or gaps in attics and roofs.
- Grow tall varieties of corn such as ‘Silver Queen’, ‘Kandy Korn’, and ‘Lancelot’. Taller plants bear their ears higher, causing raccoons trouble getting leverage to topple stalks and ravage them. They prefer shorter plants.
- You can also plant squash around your corn or other plants to deter raccoons; they don’t like walking on the prickly squash vines.
Do you have any more tips for getting rid of a raccoon? Let us know below!
Catherine Boeckmann
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Use a Have a Heart trap with tuna fish for bait. Since it’s illegal to trap and relocate, you can easily shoot them once they have been caged. No worries that they’ll be returning unless you have really poor aim.
After coming home one evening to find a raccoon in the process of killing my chickens, I don't find them to be cute at all. I tried lights but they still came around. So I moved on to other measures. I find that the most sure for way to get rid of them is to trap and kill. I live in the country so I dispose of them by leaving them for the buzzards.
this part of the article is wrong:
Plant enough corn for man and beast alike.
it doesn't matter how much you plant, they don't even eat much of it it they just enjoy stepping it into the mud and they can wreck a whole field of it in no time. planting more will not help.
I agree, it does not matter how much you grow they will destroy it. I planted 3000 plants last year and didn’t get one ear of corn. I used live traps and relocated to no avail. I will trap and kill this year. I had to pay last year to get rid of most of critters and totally makes you not want to grow your own food! Not a fan of raccoons or groundhogs!
I agree
they are cute and all and i have one myself that eats my piles i put out for my rabbits. he don't bother me so i don't bother him. but they carry racoon round worm in their feces. it can be deadly and the eggs get in you not just by eating them by your pet aka dog sniffing the feces it sniffs in the eggs. read this. it can be very deadly. google racoon roundworm
Before I take my trash outside.
I sprinkle a 1/8 cup of baking soda with a little splash of white vinegar, on top of.my trash.
Seal up the bag and toss in my outside bin.
No more raccoons in my outside trash.
* I do not know of any animal that can tolerate vinegar with or w/o baking soda.
Relocating animals is a very bad habit, especially if they are not being destructive, are not dangerous, or are not creating a health hazard. When you relocate you run the risk of 1) leaving baby animals without a mother, 2) causing the mother to find it's way home via a street or other dangerous path, 3) diminishing the gene pool. If you find that an animal has invaded your home, chances are that it wants/needs a safe place to make a nest. We have been very successful in creating habitats for our neighborhood critters, to where our house is not] longer appealing. We also use locking handle trash receptacles, and clean the recyclables before putting them out, so as to not attract critters in places we don't want them. Good habits = living in harmony with nature.
I have found a Have-A-Heart trap to be the most effective. I caught all the raccoons in my neighborhood last summer, 5 total. Relocated them about 5 miles away in a rural area. On second-guess it would have been better to release them across the river from my county.
Almost anything can be used for bait. Raccoons have an especial appetite for Marshmallows. In fact that is printed on the box which contained the trap. I can verify that the raccoons in my area loved marshmallows.
Some have complained that the Have-A -Heart does not work. The bait was gone but the trap was not sprung. Reason for that is probably the animal was too light to spring the trap. If you are careful the trap can be set to a more sensitive setting. Also if that doesn't work a weight can be taped to the tripping platform. Use some any kind of metal such as bolts, nuts or whatever you have.
Hope you don't live in Ohio. It is illegal to relocate raccoons to anywhere other than your property. Which kind of defeats the purpose. The reason is that raccoons can carry rabies and that would spread of the disease through relocation. As a person who lives in a wooded area I'd like to thank those who bring us the gifts of more raccoons, cats, dogs etc.
