#8 AND #9 RACCOONS MOVED TO SUNNY SOUTH BREVARD VACATION HOME

 #8 AKA BITEY, HISSY, GROWLY, SPITTY

This little raccoon had a bad night. He's been rampaging our chicken aviary cages, digging his way in questing for food. We don't mind if he visits at night but when he starts invading the chicken play areas then he is only one step away from coming during the daytime and helping himself to a chicken in a most unpleasant manner.

#8 (for short) made a quick escape once he was at his new home.

#9 BABY RACON

This little guy was very daring and would taunt us mercilessly, staying just out of reach but repeatedly coming to eat and rampage the chicken aviary(s), he has a new home in beautiful South Brevard County. His brother is still sneaking around P2, as long as we don't see him in our chicken areas we're cool.

Goodbye Baby Raccoon, another place, another time......

#7 "LEAPER", NOT A HAPPY RACCOON TIL WE LET HER GO

 AKA "Enda Enda" for her wild gyrations, crashing from one end of the trap to the other in desperate attempts to escape from the wonderful "County Line" live animal trap from Tractor Supply Company, the best place to shop for products for life out here :-)

Here she is, "Leaper", now residing in her new home in Southern Brevard County, Florida. She's happy now.

"Leaper", ready to leap for freedom and get outta this Tractor Supply County Line trap

This video answers the question, "Can raccoons run fast?"

and the answer is YES!

HINT: Switch player-speed to .25x and go to about 12 seconds into the video to study the "leap to freedom" in detail, it's a beautiful launch.

#6 "BIG BOY", 50-POUNDER RACCOON, GOOD BYE

 This guy took us three nights to catch, he was not happy about it either. 

"That's a 50-pounder" quote from Robert our exterminator, he does not like raccoons like we do.

This guy was heavy, you could tell by picking up the trap LOL

RACCOON #5, "CRAWLSPACE", LEAVE OUR CHICKENS ALONE!

 For the most part we've gone without much interference from raccoons for the last 10 months, ever since we did a major "tighten-up" on food sources laying around "out here". 

Now, since unknown contractors have been clearing more and more land around our farm to build more $480,000 homes and $2,000/month apartments, raccoons roaming for a home have joined with the rats in overrunning our property at night. 

We hate to move the little guys since they're already having problems with finding a secure place to live but when they are digging into our chicken aviarys, upsetting rat traps and generally causing havoc it ends here, right now, with the help of Tractor Supply Company (that is where we bought our wild animal trap).

Without further introduction here is RACCOON #5, AKA, "CRAWLSPACE". We caught him inside a chicken aviary last night and he's a repeat offender who got away the night before. Not this time, he is now vacationing in the wilds of South-West Brevard County, good bye Crawlspace, be safe!

MEET "CRAWLSPACE"

That's a damn good looking racon

 

 

RACCOON #4, "DIGGIE"

SHOULDN'T AUWTA DUG INTO OUR CHICKEN AVIARYS

 This little guy repeatedly terrorized us by digging into the aviary areas of several of our chicken flocks. Fortunately the chickens are snug in their Formex chicken coops but we still don't like this guy coming and making a mess of food. He had to go. It took us two tries to get him but our second attempt snagged our little intruder. He got a ride over to the wilds of the South-West, to a nice new forest of plants. 

When we opened the cage he ran free, very fast, in less than 2-seconds he was gone out of sight. 

In the pickup, ready for his ride to his new home

BYE. BYE RACCOON, SHOULDN'T OUGHTA EATEN OUR CHICKEN

 This raccoon has been coming here for a couple of years. She was cute and adorable until one day she decided to eat Joe, our rooster. Mary looked out the window and saw Joe in the raccoons mouth. With a shriek she ran out and broke it up. With a cedar board in hand Mary tried to beat the raccoon senseless but in terror, it got away, up a tree.

We had this animal trap for a couple of years which we bought to trap a raccoon that was living in the eves of our house. Fortunately he left. 

Mary brought the trap back to life. She prepared carefully and we got to see "Rolli" the raccoon walk in and become trapped the morning after Joe almost lost his life. Rolli was transported to a new home turf miles away from P2. She was very glad we did not kill her. 

Here are the last known photos of Rolli. Good bye ass hole!

BABY RACCOONS, FALL BATCH

 I've been up at night shooting video of all the baby raccoons that have been coming with their moms to visit P2. Currently we have around 15 babies regularly coming between 9PM and 12AM.

Here are a few good screen shots of some of the kittens.

June 29, 2020 Baby Racons!

Another great baby racon pic. I hope they come every day!

First Baby Racons 2020

Today, June 29th, we got greeted this morning with our first baby racons (raccoons :D).

Mom and four babies came to "hunt".  We love P2 baby racons!

Night Racons

NIGHT RAKE'ns

CHOMPY MAMA
and her five babies

Bucket :D

This is why we fill bucket.  Bears in pajamas are so cute.

Racon Infestation!

Raycon infestation at P2 :D

HUEY EATS A PANFISH

The pictures say it all.

MEMORIAL DAY RACON ENCOUNTER

On Friday night of Memorial day weekend Mary finally got her chance to pet a raccoon who we quickly named "Kitty". 

Kitty was very small, about the size of a softball. He was sitting on our window sill outside. It looked like his mom had accidentally left him there. He was acting sick but after we gave him a bowl of water he quickly sprung back to life and wolfed down a few black oil sunflower seeds. After playing with him for four hours we closed the window and in the morning he was gone.

We've since seen a mama with three babies and we think Kitty is one of them. He appears to be doing fine, one of the late batches of racon babies this year.

Lessons learned:  

1. Raccoons are NOT soft, not even the babies

2. When you add water to a dry raccoon, they get bitey

Baby Raccoons Feb 17 2017!

We saw our first baby raccoons this week on February 17th .... a  pack of 3 running around together.  One of the three followed mom closely, and the other two were adventurous, staying within 20 feet but not worrying too much about being beside her.  The one close to her ate Ol Racon, but the other two weren't hungry and probably drank all of the milk earlier.

So, for the future, we'll remember to look for babies early to mid February.

Raccoon Running

Traveller Palm Seeds - Planted Saturday 5/21

I bought some traveller palm seeds online from Australia, and Mark and I put them in a high humidity germinating machine on a heating mat. I've read that the germination time is anywhere from 2 weeks to 18 months, so we're not sure what to expect, but we'll see how it goes. It would be amazing to have more traveller palms throughout P2 to go with our gorgeous traveller palm.

Some other updates from this weekend:

• Mark invented a better watering system with a high powered pump pulling water from the pond and going to the new plantings.
• We got 50 St. Augustine sod pieces to rebuild the grass in front of the pond by the house. It looks so plush and the ibis love it. We watered for hours today, and it was so fun to watch the ibis bathing in the showers.
• I planted the rest of the Awapuhi rhizomes around the perimeter and in the island by the house. The early batch of Awapuhi stalks has come up, strong and healthy after the last few rains. Now the 2nd batch should be up in a few weeks, and the stunning red Awapuhi flowers shortly behind.
• Saw our first raccoon babies about 30 minutes ago! A litter of 3 kits made their way down the oak tree while mom ate at the buffet. Three little cuties with the tiniest tails barely 3 stripes on the tails. Awwwwww! This mom was not "Eight", the mom we see every day (eight because her tail has an amazing eight stripes). So eight still has babies up in the tree somewhere.