Ugh. We have a raccoon who comes out to the barn at night. I know because the little washing bear has made the barn cat’s water dish dirty with his washing-bear hands and cleans out the cat food bowl (and of course I found some footprints). How do you feed your barn cats but NOT the raccoons? One barn cat gets closed in the tack room at night and I hope that eventually the other barn cat will join him, but for now she’s a little bit bitchy and isn’t ready to make that move yet.
I also have visiting raccoons at night. I simply put away the cat food at night.
Best of luck.
I never leave catfood out at night so as not to attract rodents- would work for raccoons too.
Putting cat food out only during the day definitely helps, but sometimes that just angers the raccoons, who go on to just ransack the whole place trying to find your cat food. I unfortunately don’t have the answer to your question, but when you get desperate enough to trap them, I have the answer for your next question: “what do I bait a trap with to catch a raccoon but not my barn cats?” …the answer is a jelly sandwich. I’ve caught 3 that way so far.
What has worked at one barn I’m at: with morning chores, feed the kitties dry food. At bedtime, feed the kitties wet food, take a head count and say goodnight, and put away all uneaten food. Store kitty food in raccoon proof containers with screw-on lids or in a raccoon-proof tack room.
The rationale is that kitties learn fast that the yummy stuff comes at night, so there’s a better chance they’ll eat it all up and you can put away the empty dishes. Dry food, if you put out the right amount in the am, they’ll eat it but won’t waste a lot. If the food is somewhat limited but on a regular schedule, they’ll make an effort to show up at mealtime.
[QUOTE=betsyk;8261394]
What has worked at one barn I’m at: with morning chores, feed the kitties dry food. At bedtime, feed the kitties wet food, take a head count and say goodnight, and put away all uneaten food. Store kitty food in raccoon proof containers with screw-on lids or in a raccoon-proof tack room.
The rationale is that kitties learn fast that the yummy stuff comes at night, so there’s a better chance they’ll eat it all up and you can put away the empty dishes. Dry food, if you put out the right amount in the am, they’ll eat it but won’t waste a lot. If the food is somewhat limited but on a regular schedule, they’ll make an effort to show up at mealtime.[/QUOTE]
THIS, but I also set a baited (dry cat food) trap next to where the cats eat!! Caught a coon SOOOO big last month hubby could hardly lift it into the bucket of the tractor to take it away!! Cat food is apparently fattening!!
