I used to have raccoons living inbetween the floors of my house (last year). They ate a hole in the tarpaper on one part of the roof, crawled in up to the spot below the foot of my bed, had 5 babies, and generally pissed me off from 2am to sunrise for about 4 months. We went back and forth. I'd block one way of access to the roof, they'd find another. Finally, one night, I hear a "sliiiide, bump" noise about 5 times in a row, coming from the front porch. I go out to see what it is, and there's the BIG one trying to climb one of the pillars on the porch. I've had about 5 high lifes, and I'm REAL angry at these things. I look around for the snow shovel (or any other weapon), but it's in the garage. So I rushed it, bare-handed. I punched it really hard in the back, and it squawked pretty loud and spun around the post so it could face me. They're mean little bastards. Eventually I punched enough of its fingers to knock it off the porch, at which point it climbed the big tree in the front yard. But I was so worked up that I went and got the hose (it was maybe 50 degrees out) and started spraying it, using a flashlight in the other hand to see its eyes, with the intention of at least giving it a nasty cold.

Final solution? Half a jug of ammonia, some chicken wire, and an extension ladder. Been Raccoon-free for over a year now.

No hand to hand against the toothy giant rodents (are they rodents?). Even with padded clothes so they could get their teeth stuck while I tried to strangle it, not something I would do if I had reasonable alternatives.

<--- not attacking badger, racoon, possum, anything bigger than a squirrel without weaponry of some sort.

that is fucking intense and better be the kind of thing that only happens in wisconsin.

You are one brave, crazy bastard.

... frankly, I'm surprised it never happened in GA. Though to be fair, the solution down there would've been much quicker. My dad's comment when I first called for advice: "Son, do I have to mail you a .22?"

brilliant!

I saw a show this past weekend... I think it was on the National Geographic channel... and it had this badger who ate poisonous snakes. The amazing thing was, it showed the badger squaring off with the snake, getting bitten repeatedly, and then killing the snake. After all this, the badger seems to "pass out" from the poison, and is out of it for a couple of hours. Then it wakes up and finishes its meal. Crazy shit.

Raccoons are fearless- they were getting into our backyard and invading our little bird sanctuary (feeder & birdbath). I would go outside & chase them off at night as they were mad noisy and it would take me throwing rocks at them to make them afraid.

The first time, I thought I should run right at one and it arched up hissed and chased me back in the house.

I eventually took down the bird sanctuary

Raccoons 1 Birds 0

Funny thing is, I went to hang out w/ a friend about a month later down in Hoffman Estates (chicago-ish), and he told me to "bring a bag of dogfood." But he wouldn't say why. So I showed up at his house at like 10pm, dogfood in hand, and one of the biggest raccoons I've ever seen walked calmly up to me, stood on its hind legs, and tugged on my pants. Damn near shit m'self. He has them trained, like 8 of them in the woods next to his condo. I have pictures of it next to me as we speak... big 'ol raccoon taking dogfood out of my hand. He knew about my run-in on the front porch, and thought it's just be hilarious to surprise me with it.

Once my dad got home late at night and found a nasty note on our front door saying that our dog woundn't stop barking, bitch-neighbor was going to have him removed, etc... so he goes in the back yard to check on the dog, and laying in the yard is a huge possum. Not moving or anything. This is what the dog was barking at. The dog had obviously been mouthing-at and messing with this dead possum for who knows how long, so my dad goes and gets a trash bag to put it in. He tried to use a shovel to get the body in the bag, but it was too hard, so he just used his bare hands to get this dead possum in the bag. He put in in the trash can at the side of our house. Done. The next day he goes to take the kitchen trash out, walks up to the outside can and takes the lid off. The not-dead possum leaps at him from the bottom of the can, hissing and baring teeth. What a surprise that must have been! He got the lid back on before it got out. He had to load the whole trash can up in his truck and take it out to Sharon Woods (local state park) and let it go.

Out in Winterville, my old neighbors once caught a possum in a trashcan. They tried to drown it, but lost their nerve at the 11th hour. So they let it go... man those things are ugly.

I love critters. I lived in Oklahoma for 20 years, so I can do this all day.

Yeah my first reaction was to question whether you guys can at least buy guns like you can back home. I mean, i keep my shells and bullets in my safe, but I would have BLASTED the fuck out of that fucker.

Badgers are americanized wolverines. I would shoot them. We can get carry-permits and buy what we need down here for a reason. Things need to die sometimes.

"I know I look cute, but I will annihilate you and your kind."

my wife had a pet racoon (in the house) for a time when she was a kid - it was called Ringo.

Also - her dad hunts 'coons with a bunch of dogs that he keeps out in cages. They go out at night into these motherfuckin swamps and try to tree the bastards. They have points and awards and even a website I think. Totally off the subject...but...

I just found the website - it doesn't discuss the coon hunting, but does discuss their side project - Riding Lawn Mower tractor pull competitions...http://members.aol.com/ercha1/

Holidays are interesting to say the least.

My entire stock of knowledge on that subject comes from listening to Jerry Clower tapes as a kid on road trips. Lotsa Clower stories about coon hunting.

yeah, clower, probly touched more little boys innapropriately than michael jackson on a crystal meth/jesus juice cocktail

Note, if you will, the raccoon on his lapell...

Badgers are Mustelid carnivores - a family that includes ferrets, skunks, weasels, fishers, and the mighty wolverine. Although badgers aren't as angry as wolverines, I wouldn't go antagonize one on purpose. In nature, unless you are trying to get right up on top of them and harrassing them, they really don't pay too much attention to you unless you have a gun. They are cool animals. Why kill them? Why kill coons? Hare and squirrel taste better, anyways.

I believe the attraction with coon hunting is that they're "smarter than the average critter." I agree on the coolness, unless it's scrabbling around under the floorboards below my bed at 4 am... also directly over the light fixture in the kitchen downstairs, incedentally. Try explaining THAT with company over. "Oh that's just the family of 5 cute raccoons that lives over our kitchen. They'll settle down in an hour."

German word for raccoon: Waschbaer, which is of course just wash and bear, for how they wash their food before eating it (or seem to anyway).

my father in law doesn't kill the coons - they just tree them. they used to kill 'em though. coons are pretty cool but I hate opossums - I opened my door a couple weeks ago and one was shrieking at me. scared me shitless.

Yeah, they have doghunting down here as well, but mostly its for feral pigs, and yeah, the dogs take em on down by the neck...and apparently these people eat them. This is a pretty backwoods kind of thing. North Mobile, Washington County, etc..

When I was a kid we had a dog that we kept tied up in the backgarden. Anyway one day a polecat came along, got into some disagreement with the dog and battled commenced.

The dog had the serious disadvantage of being chained to the kennel and the pair ended up viciously ripping each other to shreads for about 8 hours. Scary stuff!

In conclusion if a polecat is that fearless and vicious to something much bigger, I wouldn't fancy taking on a badger.

Can badgers also spray like skunks?

oh, i'm totally down with the "not in my house" principle - I've just got rid of the rats in my house (think I may still have a dead one in my ductwork).

And they really are washing their food - smart little buggers.