When we bought our house, the first few months I was too busy with home renovations to act. But there'd be raccoons fighting on our deck at night. Massive colonies of rats in our trees and the vines along our fences, and mice everywhere. The symptoms were bad:
1) taking a flashlight into the back yard at night, you'd see 20+ rats looking back down at you from the trees
2) raccoons coming in and out of the yard all the time
3) rats eating the wires on our vehicles in the driveway
So I got serious and started trapping the animals. Haveaheart for the young raccoons. Goodnature traps for the rats and mice. I got a small Haveaheart trap for the rabbits as well as most of the rabbits around our house appeared to be diseased.
The pests appear to be essentially all gone now. I can leave good food out in the open, and nothing touches it for days.
I got an airgun as well, but mostly this turned out to be for dispatching injured trapped, or sick animals. I haven't needed it as much as I thought. In the beginning there were some pesky raccoons that were hard to get any other way, but now that the population is under control, my airgun is largely idle as are my traps.
I'm a little surprised by this. Some of our neighbours feed the raccoons. Maybe the pests are still in the neighbourhood, but they know enough to stay out of our yard.
Each spring I see a new litter of raccoon pups that come by, but even they seem to be increasingly wary of our yard. They used to all come through, and I'd get them all. This year I think only one raccoon even looked into our yard. It did not dare trespass.
Is this a familiar experience? I kind of figured the raccoons would come in unrelenting waves. That's why I feel like I'm a little over-prepared. I live in a semi-rural environment, surrounded by a mix of acreages and farmland.
1) taking a flashlight into the back yard at night, you'd see 20+ rats looking back down at you from the trees
2) raccoons coming in and out of the yard all the time
3) rats eating the wires on our vehicles in the driveway
So I got serious and started trapping the animals. Haveaheart for the young raccoons. Goodnature traps for the rats and mice. I got a small Haveaheart trap for the rabbits as well as most of the rabbits around our house appeared to be diseased.
The pests appear to be essentially all gone now. I can leave good food out in the open, and nothing touches it for days.
I got an airgun as well, but mostly this turned out to be for dispatching injured trapped, or sick animals. I haven't needed it as much as I thought. In the beginning there were some pesky raccoons that were hard to get any other way, but now that the population is under control, my airgun is largely idle as are my traps.
I'm a little surprised by this. Some of our neighbours feed the raccoons. Maybe the pests are still in the neighbourhood, but they know enough to stay out of our yard.
Each spring I see a new litter of raccoon pups that come by, but even they seem to be increasingly wary of our yard. They used to all come through, and I'd get them all. This year I think only one raccoon even looked into our yard. It did not dare trespass.
Is this a familiar experience? I kind of figured the raccoons would come in unrelenting waves. That's why I feel like I'm a little over-prepared. I live in a semi-rural environment, surrounded by a mix of acreages and farmland.
your tales of target rich environments long past are saddening.... 
The terminators (who like stoutblock, want get rid of them once and for all, terminate the problem, period). 
