Darn Raccoons

I didn't notice a general pond topic so I thought I would toss this in here...

I built my pond about 11 years ago and we never saw a raccoon in our area until some 3-4 years ago. They never became a serious problem until last winter when they thrashed all my potted plants located on the plant shelf of the pond. They made a horrible mess and I had to remove all the plants from the shelf.

My pond has rocks and stone of various sizes laying on top of the rubber liner around the edges of the pond and also in the small stream. The most recent exploits of the raccoons has been to move the rocks around looking for something to eat. Many of them end up on the plant shelf. Several days ago my wife noticed the water in the pond was way down, about 1 foot. Upon investigating I found that they had been moving rocks around in the stream and they undermined the banks of the stream by removing some rocks and this caused the water to overflow the liner and soak into my sandy soil.

So yesterday I bought two cans of Great Stuff expanding foam. I then spent the day moving stones off of the edges of the liner at the banks of my little stream. I cleaned off the mud and gunk off the liner and today when it gets a bit warmer I plan to use the Great Stuff to glue those stone in place. Hopefully this will keep the rascals from displacing critical stones.

I used Great Stuff in a few critical areas and attached stones to the liner. It has held them in place for 11 years, thus I am fairly confident this will work.....

I saw the new topic and thought, "Oh, there it is!" thinking I must have not seen it when I made the original post....  

Thanks

Well, two cans of Great Stuff wasn't enough.  I'm off to HD for more...

I hope that solves your problem, Mikey. Thankfully I haven't had problems with raccoons yet. They can sure make a mess in no time.

I love your gif.,It looks just like my Jenny. Actually the white and black dog is mine and the balck one I doggie sit for often. She was here for about 6 weeks this summer. They moved to the other side of the state. She was here for the weekend a month ago and will be here again over Thanksgiving. Yes they are both rescues and both used to race in Florida.

The rescue groups here stress the importance of making sure they are in a securely fenced yard or on a leash at all times because of the dangers of them getting lose. They educate potential adopters on the sight hound breed and how they have 2000 years of breading and instinct to chase. They can see 1/2 mile and no matter how well trained they are or how many times they have gone from the car to the house without a lease before it just takes one time for that instinct to kick in and they chase after something. Your sister is very lucky to get her dog back. That is not usually the case. They usually get hit by a car running across a road. If my dog got loose due to negligence on my part the adoption group could take her away from me. I had to sign a very detailed contract when I adopted her. Their main concern is for the dogs, as it should be. They have had such a bum start in life, they deserve a good home.

It's not that they love to run. They have the ability to run fast and they have the instinct to chase. Actually they are called 45 MPH couch potatoes. My dog is happiest on the couch or her bed. They are not active dogs by nature.

Thats really great of you to adopt a dog that had such a bad go of it. Our funny farm has four dogs, five cats and a huge lizard.

Our funny farm has four dogs, five cats and a huge lizard.

Did you eat the goat? :[IMG]/confused

bullfrog wrote:Thats really great of you to adopt a dog that had such a bad go of it. Our funny farm has four dogs, five cats and a huge lizard.

Speaking of... How is Dundee?? I'd love to see pics!! New thread under Furry Friends??

Pete's son Ken has a rescue grayhound. They said he didn't want to race. He just loves them and they love him. It was so cute watching Ken teach him to do dog stuff. Now he is really doing dog stuff like taking food off the table when their back is turned. LOL.

Oops, sorry, I forgot the two goats. Dundee is huge now, over two feet long.

About those coons. Until I had a six foot vynal fence installed completely around the back yard, I had to have my tub type fish pond covered with heavy guage fence wire to keep the racoons out. They would come by almost every night and stick their fat little arms though the wire and attempt to do some fishing. There was evidence almost every morning that they were there. The poor fish were always frantic, and would stay in hiding. After six foot fence went up, there were no more coon vivsts during the night. It suddenly came to me that racoons can't climb smooth plastic fences. That was when I realised that now I could put in a fish pond in my yard without being concerned about meroding racoons feasting on my fish.

Happy ponding,

Rich

P.S. I haven't had any tweekers wonder through my yard in the last year either.

Herons evidently don't like stepping through tangly weedy stuff or will not climb over a low fence. We haven't had a problem since putting up the short rope fence and planting marginals under it.

I think your right, my pond is rather closed in.

Happy ponding,

Rich

Because of the six foot fence in the back I don't see the racoons anymore, But the neighbor across the alley said when he goes to work at 0530 in the morning, mom racoon and a troop of young racoons meander down the alley like they're late for the bus.

I just glad they can no longer get over my fence and into the yard. They used turn everything over and inside out.

Happy ponding,

Rich

I would jave to agree with you on that.

I remember the first time I set up the old grey 80 gallon tub. I put a new water lily plant in the tub along about six feeder gold fish, and a cheep home made filter that seemed to work alright. I got up the next morning to check my new pets, and evrything was upside down. The water lily and it's pot was completly pulled out of the pond, the fish were gone, the water was dirty like old bath water with coon hair floating in it, and the pump was pulled all apart on the ground and was still running with water all over the place.

I ended up making a heavy wire cage for the top of the tub that couldn't be removed without bending the wire corners back out. That lasted a couple of years without any loses. I could always tell when the coons would give the wire cover a try. There would little wet foot prints all around on the cement next to the tub the next morning.

If I didn't have the fence to save my pond from meroders, I would have to build a aviery type cage over my pond.

Happy ponding,

Rich  

I use the "Basset" method for discouraging raccoons

My back-up plan is English

I like the picture where the guard dog is stand guard at the window.

Happy ponding,

Rich

I know this is cruel, but I couldn't stop laughing, and I enjoy seeing the squirrels ruuning across my yard to the neighbors tree.

www.how_to_keep_squirrels_off_your_deck.wmv

Rich, I just visited your yard and pond. Buttons was a little suspicious of me but when I said it was OK because I have a poodle too, then it was OK.

JW,

Your right about the rascals.

Happy ponding,

Rich

Esther wrote:Rich, I just visited your yard and pond. Buttons was a little suspicious of me but when I said it was OK because I have a poodle too, then it was OK.

Thanks Esther, Mr. Buttons was a freebee at two weeks old. We had to bottle feed him until he was about month old. We have never bonded with a dog like this one. He's part of the family for sure.

Happy ponding,

Rich

JW,

Sorry, somethings not working right. If you manualy type the in using the underscore btween the words it will work. I recieved that as a email, and couldn't figure out how to cut and paste that.

Happy ponding,

Okay JW, lets try this one.

https://s573.photobucket.com/albums/ss171/MatzohHeppelwhite/?action=view&current=How_to_keep_squirrels_off_your_deck.flv

I agree, launching squirrels could be rather crewl. I'm sure they thouhgt twice before coming back.

We have several neighborhood squirrels that venture through our yard. They don't stick around long because don't feed our dog outside. Our Pastor has one that visits them when they are out on their deck. Pastor Bill says that their resident squirrel will get up on their laps and eat out their hand.

Happy ponding,

Rich                          

When my son lived in town, they had gobs of squirrels and one in particular had managed to figure out how to jump over from a small sapling near it and shinny up the pipe he had the bird feeder mounted on. So he took some grease and put it on the pipe. He said it was so funny when the squirrel jumped over and tried to grip the pipe, he slid down in slow motion.

I put ear corn out on a L shaped thing my husband made. He put a 3-4" deck screw up through one side and we screw the ear down. That way the squirrel doesn't take the whole ear and we get to watch him eat. The L shaped thing is attached to the tree.

My stepson is going to make me one of those squirrel feeders that has a 1 gallon glass jar attached to a feeder and he has to get in the feeder to get to the food.

We have a resident furry squirrel chaser with four legs. He has a fit when he sees the squirrels come on the deck. One older squirrel will sit right there and try to get at the suet block in the suet cage. Smokey has a fit at the patio door and the squirrel just keeps on working. The rest will run off right away.

Tha t sounds like fun. I have seen a variety of different squirrels feeders at stores. I'll have to make a one like yours, and sit and watch the antics.

Happy ponding,

Rich