Scrunchie, the brew Raccoon

[Nurmey]

My story starts yesterday with Troy was going out to our shed. As he walks around the corner of the house he hears a squeal/cry that scares the crap out of him. There in my flower bed is a newborn raccoon crying and wiggling around. Hubby comes and gets me and we look around the yard. No Mommy raccoon in sight, in fact I've never seen one in my neighborhood so we have no idea where the baby came from. We decide to leave it there in hopes that Mommy will fetch it soon.

Off we go to the hardware store for the mower blade; it is still there when we get home. Couple hours go by and we go out for dinner. It is still there crying and wiggling around. Several hours later we get home from our night out; it is still there but has wiggled out of the bed and onto the river rock path.

I don't want to bother it in case Mommy is somewhere close by but I go to bed worried that it won't be alive in the morning. First thing in this morning I look out my kitchen window, it's still there. I'm pretty sure it's dead from the cold night as it's lying very still on the rocks. I am sad to see it still there and sad that it is dead.

I have my coffee, read HBT, and then start getting ready for brew day. In the back of my mind I'm thinking about having to send hubby out to dispose of the little guy.

Since it's a nice relaxed brew day it takes me quite a while to get things together so it's a couple hours later when we start the mash. Hubby looks out the window and exclaims "It's still alive, I just saw him move!"

We decide that the only thing to do is bring him in the house. I find a box and a t-shirt and send hubby out to collect the little guy. We bring him in to warm up. We look up a local wild life rescue place and after several calls, we get a hold of someone to come over but it will be a while.

We have named him Scrunchie.

He lies in his box wiggling and crying during the mash, sparge, and boil. The rescue lady gets to our house right before the boil finished.

Hopefully Scrunchie will live a long happy life.

 

[BlindLemonLars]

Wow...cute little guy. I hope everything works out for him. I'm impressed that you have a local wildlife rescue place willing to take on a newborn animal.

 

[Cheeto]

Glad you found a rescue service for it.


I have read that they don't make good pets.

-Jason

 

[llazy_llama]

Awwwwwwww.



So now we have brew dogs, bees, cats, cocks, and racoons?

Well done for rescuing the poor thing! I'll raise a pint to that, and to the caring and loving people who went out of their way to take care of the abandoned baby.

 

[Skins_Brew]

Quite a noble thing you did. My wife wants me to destroy a bird nest out on the back porch but I just cant bring myself to do it.

 

[Damonic]

Glad you found a rescue service for it.


I have read that they don't make good pets.

-Jason

No they don't. My wife used to be a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and she LOVED raising raccoons. Fun and very playful apparently. Then they turn into vile little adolescent nightmares. Their wild nature just cannot be overcome, even with hand feeding.

Props for rescuing the little guy!

 

[IrregularPulse]

Much better than wild animal weekend we had. I woke up to a high pitch squeaking. I though aww man, my dogs got a bird. Then I hear SWMBO, who was outside, yelling for. I go outside with my son, we were sleeping, and see my wife has my Weim backed into the corner of the patio with a broom and he has a brown rabbit in his mouth. She could handed me the broom, I handed her the boy, and proceeded to "convince" my dog to let go and we put them in the garage. I watch as the little rabbit hobbled off draggin it's bloody rear end thinking, "I wish I had at least a pellet gun". Then the neighbors cat jumps the fence, walks behind the rabbit, and then picks it up in her mouth and carries it off. A nice free lunch for the cat courtesy of my dog.

 

[pjj2ba]

No they don't. My wife used to be a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and she LOVED raising raccoons. Fun and very playful apparently. Then they turn into vile little adolescent nightmares. Their wild nature just cannot be overcome, even with hand feeding.

Props for rescuing the little guy!

+1, many years ago, some friends raised a rescued raccoon. Playfull little bugger, then it grew up

 

[jmendez29]

There was a guy in my high school who had a "pet" raccoon. They found it when it was just a newborn, like you, but had no intention of keeping it. They raised it to adolescence and let it go. But after it was "free" it kept coming back. It wouldn't go into the house anymore, but it would come around and keep everyone company. They would feed it, even by hand, and it would even allow them to pick him up and pet him, but they never even tried to make it a full time pet. Just a wildlife buddy if you want to call it that. Pretty cool little guy though.

 

[Mutilated1]

Wow thats great. I'm jealous - I love raccoons.

But you should not bring him into your house, especially if you have other pets or small kids - raccoons have awful worms and you don't want your other pets or kids to get infected.

Good call on the wildlife rescue. When my kids grow up and finish college, I'm going to have a raccoon/wildlife rescue as my second career when I retire.

Is it a girl or a boy ?

It looks like its close to a week old, but not much more than that - its eyes and ears aren't open yet.

 

[Thumper]

No they don't. My wife used to be a licensed wildlife rehabilitator and she LOVED raising raccoons. Fun and very playful apparently. Then they turn into vile little adolescent nightmares. Their wild nature just cannot be overcome, even with hand feeding.

Props for rescuing the little guy!

How is this different that raising teenage male of our species? LOL. Sounds just like my 14 year old.

Anyway, you did a good thing by taking the trouble to find a rescue agency.

Cheers,

 

[Nurmey]

Wow thats great. I'm jealous - I love raccoons.

But you should not bring him into your house, especially if you have other pets or small kids - raccoons have awful worms and you don't want your other pets or kids to get infected.

Good call on the wildlife rescue. When my kids grow up and finish college, I'm going to have a raccoon/wildlife rescue as my second career when I retire.

Is it a girl or a boy ?

It looks like its close to a week old, but not much more than that - its eyes and ears aren't open yet.

I had Troy use gloves for picking him up just to be safe and we kept him confined to the box so hopefully no nasties were introduced to the house.

The rescue lady checked it out and said boy raccoon.

 

[Mutilated1]

You might also go have a look around for more. If he's an orphan, he probably has brothers and sisters out there too - otherwise he's most likely just lost and mommy will be back to look for him once she stashes the other babies in a safe place.

If the wildlife rescue hasn't already taken him, move his box back outside where you found him and leave him alone in the box. His momma will come and find him.

 

[nystevecf]

You might also go have a look around for more. If he's an orphan, he probably has brothers and sisters out there too - otherwise he's most likely just lost and mommy will be back to look for him once she stashes the other babies in a safe place.

If the wildlife rescue hasn't already taken him, move his box back outside where you found him and leave him alone in the box. His momma will come and find him.

Im pretty sure the mother would have been back within the almost two days they already waited. I did work all thru my childhood with them up until my late teens. You are doing the right thing, only other thing I might suggest is rotate some warm water bottles in the box under the sheets to keep it warmer.

 

[mmb]

Cute as babies. Blood thirsty attack critters when adults that tear into everything.

I'd rather deal with the coyotes any day than with raccoons.

 

[Mutilated1]

Momma won't come back right away if she's got her paws full taking care of the others. What you want to do is take care of him outside where his momma can find him when she comes looking - it could take a while, leave him outside and don't handle him. And don't be going out to check on him constantly either - feed him, poop him, and basically leave him alone. I forgot to tell you about pooping him - the babies can't "go" on their own so you need to massage his anus so he can eliminate - no I'm not kidding, yes its gross and use gloves because he's got worms in his feces that you don't want to catch. You need to poop him every day for the next couple of weeks or he'll die - he can't go on his own till a couple weeks after his eyes and ears open.

But leave him outdoors, don't think just cause his momma ain't been back for a day or two that she won't come back - she'll come back either looking for her kitten or looking for something to eat and she'll take her kitten if she finds him, but she can't find him in a box in your basement.

The very best this little guy can hope for is being returned to his momma - leave him outside. You can put him in a box and make him a bed, feed him, poop him, but leave him outdoors - don't take him inside. Indoors is not his habitat and he shouldn't get the idea that its ok for him to go in a house, if he learns that he'll die when he gets released because someone else will trap or shoot him. Besides, in a couple weeks when his eyes are opened and he's ready to play he will vandalize everything in your house.

Seriously leave him outside - don't bring him in.

 

[Revvy]

I'm not sure I really want to know how you know about massaging a racoon's anus mutilated?

 

[Mutilated1]

Cute as babies. Blood thirsty attack critters when adults that tear into everything.

I'd rather deal with the coyotes any day than with raccoons.

yeah I would too - I don't feel remorse for shooting a coyote

racoons are not "blood thirsty" but once they're weaned they will put a wicked bite on you even if they like you. they shouldn't get the idea that people are anything other than dangerous, its not safe for people and its not fair to the coon

If you have too keep one, and its best if you don't - don't handle it other than to bottle feed it and stop doing that as soon as its weaned. Once its off the bottle you can feed it puppy chow, oats, and table scraps - don't feed it in a dog dish, throw the food on the ground away from the house and let the coon find it on its own

If mommy don't come back, he might stick around till fall before he disappears but most likely your neighbors will have called animal control on him before then anyway - once he's on his own you might even see him come back every once in a while

of course this information about feeding him and what not isn't as good as sending him to a wildlife rescue, I'm just sort of telling you what the wildlife rescue will do and recommend - and they'll tell you leave him outside and leave him alone

Long time ago my dad ran over a momma coon one night and brought home an orange crate with four babies. My brother and I tried to keep them for pets for a while, at first they were nice just kind of rough with the biting. Mom was afraid we'd get rabies, but she was a librarian at school and brought us home the book "Rascal" to read. We even named them, but its been 25 years ago and I don't remember what their names were. We had this woodshed that was a railroad car buried in a hill side and we kept their crate out there for a few months till they got too rambunctious and started stealing eggs and harassing the chickens causing trouble and dad starting threatening their lives. After that we had to get rid of them so I moved their box down near our pond about 1/2 mile away and cut down a few cedar trees to make a den, but they would still come up to the house for a meal and to cause trouble so we started throwing apples and peaches of our trees at them and chasing them away. Eventually they got wary enough of people that they quit coming right up to the house, plus once they get mostly grown up they are 90% nocturnal so we'd see less and less of them even though I would go down and look for them and see some of them from time to time. I found one of them dead the next summer, and two others moved away and I don't know what happened to them - the last one stuck around we'd see her every once in a while going fishing or crossing the road somewhere.

Anyway, thats pretty much why I have racoons on the brain all the time and I've worked with wildlife rescue from time to time since even though the last several years the only working with wildlife rescue I get to do is writing a check each year.

But I really love racoons, and when I retire I'm going to get a little truck with a raccoon paintjob and go into business catching them because around where I live they have a bad reputation as pests and make homes in your attic or in your garage - under your porch - stuff like that. So I'm just going to drink beer and fish all day and when someone calls with a raccoon or animal problem, I will go out and catch it, give it rabies vaccination and a flea dip and relocate it. Plus if business gets slow you can just let it go in another neighborhood and wait for the call to catch him again - lol j/k No seriously, I am going to catch/rescue coons and other animals once my kids finish college and I can start a second career.

@Revvy - not joking about massaging the coon's anus so it can go - have to do that with a lot of baby animals, not just coons. Still its pretty gross and funny sounding huh ? Since I've already probably grossed you out - in the wild his mommy will toss his salad daily until fall when he leaves - lol

 

[mmb]

@Revvy - not joking about massaging the coon's anus so it can go - have to do that with a lot of baby animals, not just coons.

We had to hand raise a littler of kittens after the mother barncat left/got shot/hit whatever and got away with just doing a sponge bath over the toilet. Apparently, the tongue cleaning stimulates the babies elimination function.

Chances are you didn't have to go all that far to get the party started.

 

[BlindLemonLars]

Since I've already probably grossed you out - in the wild his mommy will toss his salad daily until fall when he leaves - lol

This thread started out on such a sweet, endearing note...what happened! :cross: