I noticed we had a family of raccoons living under our house. I thought it was kind of strange that my cats were no longer under the house. The cats had moved into my pumpkin patch a few weeks prior. These raccoons seem some what domesticated because they would show themselves in the day time. Casually just eating my chicken scraps and cat food.
I left for grocery shopping one evening(which is unusual because I usually go in the early morning) a few days back I came home to Zach upset. He said he had to shoot a raccoon. He has not liked this whole animal killing business. He has had to be the one to do the dirty work because I am a terrible aim. Seriously, my boys can shoot a rifle better then I can, how sad is that. If left up to me I 'd probably load the bullet backwards(well I doubt you can do that) in a panic and then shoot my foot. I defiantly need some more time at the range. Well after that fiasco we decided there has to be a better way. We knew we could use traps but also couldn't afford our own at this time. Our brother in law said we could use his new ones and also Uncle Eric. I guess Zach and I hate borrowing everything under the sun from everybody so we were reluctant. Of course Warren next door came home one night set out the trap without me knowing about it and I woke up to this raccoon. Warren has been our saving grace many times out here and I appreciate all his help.
On the next night we caught a Possum which I thought was giving birth. She was very aggressive and panting like she was in labor. Come to find out that the hole that I thought was a birthing hole was her pouch. Possums are marsupials and one of the only ones in North America. I guess they are also technically called a opossum.. For more info check out Wikipedia here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial
Zach had me leave her in the trap until he got home because he wanted to see her. It's not everyday you get to see a possum and her babies. I gave her some food(turkey lunch meat) and put her in the shade. I checked on her throughout the day to make sure she was okay. She was alive and kicking and did not like my camera or me getting close to the cage. Come to find out that she had 6 baby possums. Of course my boys reaction was to all this was Mom, can we hold them? Not only did they want to hold the baby Possums but they wanted to hold the Mama. They also wanted to keep the Raccoon for a pet but Mom objected to all requests.
We eventually let her go after Zach got home from work and it was so cute, she had 2 baby possums on her back and the rest in her pouch. She calmed down before we let her go, somehow she could sense we were not going to hurt her. Setting her and the raccoon free was certainly easier then killing these helpless animals. They don't seem so helpless when their eating your live stock but we have learned we have to be a little smarter than the critters in these parts.
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| Yes, a nuisance they are when they eat all of our cat food! |
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| It has no problem showing it's face in the day time! |
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| Gotcha! |
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| Keynan trying to poke it with a stick of course when Mommy isn't looking. |
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| I think it was a she and she started to get real excited when we were moving the trap into Warren's truck. |
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| The raccoon was doing flips in the trap. |
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| We let Warren's Dog Charlie get acquainted with the little fella. To my surprise the Raccoon was pretty tough and made some interesting defense noises. |
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| Charlie a little scared from the raccoons defense tactics but Charlie is still a puppy! |
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| This is how she looked when I first found her. |
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| She is not happy and certainly does not look nice. |
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| You can kind of see the pouch opening which I thought was a birthing hole at first! |
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| She was very protective of her young and was a very good Mama to them. |
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| "I'm free at last, thank god almighty I'm free at last!" |
