This interesting video was recorded by one of our wildlife technicians during a raccoon removal from a customer’s home. The technician removed a litter of raccoon babies from the attic they were living in and has placed them inside a heated box on the roof of the home to be reunited with their mother. A camera was then set up inside the box to capture the reunification process.
Raccoons begin to have their babies in spring, and litters will continue to be born through the summer. During that time of year, when removing raccoons from the attic it is important to be aware that there could also be babies. Litters typically contain three to five babies, but there could be as many as eight. Baby raccoons do not begin to become mobile until eight weeks of age and won’t leave the den site until at least ten weeks after they are born. This means that the only way they can be removed from attics, porches, sheds and garages is by hand.
As part of the Skedaddle process, our technicians perform a complete search of your attic to determine if there any babies. Locating baby raccoons can be tricky business. It usually involves crawling through a sweltering attic full of dust, feces and itchy insulation. To protect the litter, their mother will have hidden them in a hard to reach location. Using their eyes and ears, our technicians will find the entire litter and whisk them out of the attic.
The act of temporarily separating a mother raccoon from her babies can make her pretty upset. It takes an experienced and skillful technician to safely keep the mother at bay while the babies are collected. Handling wild animals without the proper training and equipment can be very dangerous.
Once outside, the litter is placed in a protective box near the entrance the raccoons used to access the attic. Raccoons have a strong maternal instinct that will guide the mother out of the attic in search of her babies. For safety and security, raccoons will be aware of numerous den sites in the neighbourhood. A mother raccoon evicted from a den site will be aware of at least five to ten other places she can quickly take her babies to. One by one, the mother will relocate the babies to one of her other nearby den sites.
Skedaddle has been humanely removing and excluding raccoons from attics, decks, porches and garages for over 24 years. SPCAs and Humane Societies throughout Ontario and Quebec endorse our safe, humane and effective methods. We guarantee our removal services for up to five years so call Skedaddle today to get rid of the raccoons living in your attic.
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