skunks rats & raccoons! i dont want them eating my feral cats dish!

ok rats is not much of a problem since most feral cats will go after a rat

but skunks and coons always get into outdoor cat dishes its so annoying!

the cats cant do much about it if they attack the skunk they get sprayed if they attack the coons they will get beat up!

Cant put cat food in at night because the cat is never around unless its night!

The time the cat comes out to play and eat is when we are all tucked in bed... what do we do? WHat do YOU Do ?

personally, I put a dish out for the wildlife too We have a HUGE opossum named Barney LOL ... sorry I'm not much help!

I just buy a big bag of cheap food for the raccons. I tried feeding the raccons in the back yard and the ferals in my front yard, but the raccons got wise to that. They would eat everything I put out back and then the whole family races around front to finish eating whatever the ferals didn't eat. Sometimes they interupt my ferals eating and I'm afraid they might hurt one of them.

I haven't seen any skunks or rats but I used to have opossums and I miss those sweet little cuties. I think those mean raccons chased them off.

Ellen

I dont really mind possems or skunks even foxes as much since, its just coons are so tempermental and always try to dominate the cats


coons are one animal never to be messed with i saw a coyote avoid a big coon sitting in a trash can the coyote didnt even think about messing with it and the coon had no fear of it

i dont know if its right to feed coons posssems or skunks since they are wild animals and its constantly stressed over and over to NOT feed wild animls as that usually ends in the animals death

Honestly you cant stop the raccoons (I dont have skunks or rats but a skunk most likely will win because of it's smell even to you!)

I have the same problem except one of my cats is so large it wants to fight the raccoon! It's not even afraid of dogs! but he's vaccinated and neutered.

Raccoons will come by some time during the night, if not when you awake to scare them away, then when your asleep and can do nothing. Even if you trapped one, more will find your food.
Thats how they the flourish, they adapt to their different surroundings.

Best thing to do is just chase them away if your awake, or put the food somewhere only a cat can fit, but the skunk and rats will still get the food.
Not much to do really, except make sure your cats are vaccinated against rabies for their safety and yours.

I have at least 6 raccoons living under my deck and in the tree right beside it. The deck is where my 2 ferals live too.

I slowly got my ferals to eat in the morning instead of night time. I put their food out later and later and later until it was early morning. It didn't take as long as you would think. It was like the cats and me knew we had a problem and we were on the same page LOL.

The other thing I've done just to deter the raccoons, is keep a porch light on all the time. I have a soft light in it. The light doesn't keep them away from food, but they do not like the light, so it does keep them from taking over the porch and spending more time than absolutely necessary for their food hunting.

This time of year is when raccoons scavenge like crazy for food. I read an article a while ago about how the juveniles travel in packs this time of year just looking for anything. Here is why:
"As autumn approaches, raccoons heed an inner call to build up fat reserves so they can make it through the cold wintry months ahead. Adults eat more during the autumn than at other times of the year. By late fall, they've generally put on more than an extra inch of fat. Between summer and mid-November, juvenile raccoons may increase their weight more than 120%!. This added fat provides them with the energy and insulation they need during their long winter naps."

Right, so it's not an all year problem, so basically late summer-fall is the only time you really have to worry, their just packing on the pounds before their long nap then you wont have to worry about them.

I was searching online for a raccoon proof feeder and I saw this homemade "raccoon-proof" feeder
http://www.thewildones.net/raccoons.htm


Cats can jump up into the feeder, but raccoons and other animals can't jump or climb up into it. The things I don't like about it is that its not enclosed, so perhaps wind-driven rain could get on the food and perhaps coyotes could get to the food. Also, I didn't think it looked very aesthetic.

I also was looking online at other cat food feeders and found this one:
http://www.hawkswillwoodwork.com/Fee...dmark_mini.jpg
http://www.hawkswillwoodwork.com/Fee...losed_mini.jpg
http://www.hawkswillwoodwork.com/OUT...FURNITURE.html

The only problem is, it looks to me like raccoons and other animals could climp up and get into it.

So I got the idea to combine the best features of the two feeders. I photoshopped this picture below:

http://i36.tinypic.com/11aiq9y.jpg

What do you think? Would it work?

that can stop a fox or coyote but not a coon or possem

We built a slotted wooden table with inset legs. It DOES stop the coons with inset legs, they can't jump up there. We then put the food out before dusk and leave it out for 1 hour. We put food up for 1 hour in the morning. The ferals figure out the schedule and we don't feed the entire forest. DH got sick of letting coons, skunks and possums out of the traps.

Originally Posted by LDG

We built a slotted wooden table with inset legs. It DOES stop the coons with inset legs, they can't jump up there. We then put the food out before dusk and leave it out for 1 hour. We put food up for 1 hour in the morning. The ferals figure out the schedule and we don't feed the entire forest. DH got sick of letting coons, skunks and possums out of the traps.

Click to expand...

Can you post a photo? Thanks.

Yup. Here:



...though I think restricting the feeding hours did more than anything to stop the feeding of the forest.