Take garbage directly to your dumpster and tie your dumpster closed whenever you’re not using it. Keep any garbage you do keep outside in sealable plastic bags. Refrain from keeping any garbage outside whenever possible. What should I do about the raccoons near my home this winter?Įasily the best way to keep a raccoon away from your home is to keep them out of your garbage. If there’s any easily-foraged food lying around, you can bet a raccoon will find it. Look for fallen fruits, berries, leaves, nuts, or garbage in and around your yard. These raccoons are either finding shelter or food they can rely on nearby. Now, the bad news: if you see a raccoon in your yard constantly, then they probably do live nearby. As a consequence, they might have to wander further from their dens than usual. It’s harder for raccoons to find food during winter than it is during the rest of the year. First, the good news: a raccoon near your home don’t necessarily live on your property. Why are there raccoons near my home this winter? Raccoons can transmit rabies through their bites, so they should be treated as potentially dangerous. They behave much more aggressively than they would normally if they perceive you as a threat. Raccoon mothers are fiercely protective of their offspring. If you suspect you may have a pregnant or nursing raccoon near your property, let us know right away. Once the cubs are born, the mother may move to an underground den. Mating and pregnancy usually occur inside the mother’s overwintering den. Raccoon mothers are pregnant for around nine weeks, which means birth usually occurs in spring. Raccoon mating season depends on the environmental temperature and food availability, but it usually occurs early in the year. In some circumstances, a raccoon may even sneak into your garage in order to access garbage. The fewer food options a raccoon has, the more appealing your dumpsters will look, particularly if they’re easy to crawl into. Raccoons are infamous dumpster divers, and that doesn’t change in winter. When they come out of torpor, they’ll make due with nuts, seeds, plant stalks, berries, leaves. During winter, their food options become much more limited. Raccoons’ adaptability largely stems from the fact that they’re very good at foraging for food no matter where they are. In short: whatever they can get their paws on. You may find them under your deck, porch, or shed. Raccoons den together when they have enough space and the den is suitably protected. During winter, however, several raccoons may den together in order to better conserve body heat. Raccoons are usually solitary animals with home territories that they’ll defend from the competition. They’ll commonly move into logs, tree hollows, the underside of rocks, or other animal’s dugouts. A raccoon usually makes its den in natural, wind-breaking cover. They can and will make their dens in nearly any kind of environment, including neighborhoods. Raccoons are very adaptable, which is a big part of why they’re so wide-spread. If they wait too long to replenish their fat stores, a raccoon could lose up to 50% of their body weight during winter. Instead, they’ll have to wake up every couple of weeks to forage for food, restore body heat, and drink. Unlike true hibernators, raccoons can’t rely on torpor to get them through an entire winter. While in torpor, a raccoon can sleep for weeks at a time, relying on accumulated fat stores for food. They will enter a prolonged state of inactivity called torpor when average temperatures drop below 15 ☏, however. No, raccoons cannot enter “true” hibernation. To that end, here’s what you should know about what raccoons are up to this winter: Do raccoons hibernate? The best way to keep raccoons away from your home this winter is to figure out what they want and make sure they can’t get it around you. Unfortunately, just because a raccoon will spend most of its winter hiding doesn’t mean they can’t still make trouble for you. They want food that’s easy to find, and lots of it. Raccoons are opportunistic foragers, especially in winter. Instead, they’ll emerge every few weeks to forage for food and drink water. Raccoons spend most of the winter hunkered down in their dens, but they can’t rest all the time.
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