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  • From: Richard Stewart <rstewart AT zoomtown.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Vegetables that deer don't eat
  • Date: Sun, 23 Aug 2009 11:02:24 -0400

I have a 300 acre farm that is over a mile long.  We used to catch and release the raccoons from one end f the property to another.  Not the best solution when you think about what the neighbors might have to deal with.

That said it was a humane way of treating them.  They are necessary scavengers (until the population explodes).  We started marking them about a year later.  Our raccoon population never went down and for a time we had been giving them to a local dog trainer that trained coon hounds.  That had dried up and our horse population (we board horses in addition to crop and produce and beekeeping) was increasing.  Raccoons are not good to have around gardens and definitely not good to have around horses, especially when they begin defecating on bales of hay.

So we have started using fly bait and coke in a coffee can.  They do not get more than fifty feet away before they are dead.  It may go against some folks' sensibilities but it works and works well.  We have barn cats and farm dogs and they will not go near it.  Raccoons love it and it kills them.

I absolutely LOATHE killing animals without a need but raccoons area a carrier of EPM, can be a carrier for rabies, and they ruin crops, defecate on raised beds with fabric, and ruin bales of hay.  Its the most simple solution to an ever increasing problem for those of us near urban areas that do not deal with the pests and all but encourage them to breed and flourish.

Richard Stewart
Carriage House Farm
North Bend, Ohio

An Ohio Century Farm Est. 1855

(513) 967-1106



On Aug 23, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Wyatt Jones wrote:

I see Deer tracks all the time but they don't seem to cause any damage to my crops, the raccoons are a problem now though.  I've asked the people around here, who seem to have similar experience as mine is limited in this area, and they seem to think its because the deer go for all the soybeans around here. 
 
 I trapped out all the little Raccoons, took some doing but I had some help from hurricane Ike when it knocked down all the hollow tree I had, but the big one don't seem to go for the traps.  I don't know if that's because they are smarter or because they won't fit in the traps.  Any suggestion how to rid myself of these walking disasters?  I had a number of groundhogs but the come out in the daytime and I managed to deal with them.  I kept the raccoons at bay till recently but now they have found the sweet corn and you know how that can be. 
 
 


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