Dead coon

[fishhead]

Last night I was near the back door when I saw something strange. When my eyes focused on it it turned out to be a dead coon. It was near my winter sunflower seed bird feeder. It was stiff but not bloated.

I didn't examine the coon very close but it looked to be in decent shape and I didn't see any blood or bullet holes. It was probably 150-175' from the highway and on the other side of the house.

Are coons with distemper usually in poor physical condition?

Could spoiled sunflower seeds poison it and that quickly?

[tinknal]

Sounds strange to me. I've seen a few distemper coon. They usually are full of burrs and look like heck. Do you have a dog? If not my guess would be that it got injured on the highway and made it that far.

[fishhead]

Yes I have an 8 month old pup but he doesn't have the confidence to tackle a coon yet. Plus he's never outdoors without me.

It seems strange to me too for some reason.

[mekasmom]

I would wear gloves, pick it up, and dispose of it. I assume it was hit on the road then crawled that far to die, but you never know for sure.

[fishhead]

Already done. That's why I didn't spend any time looking it over for injuries or bullet holes.

Several years ago I had some strange tracks in the driveway and yard. It looked like they were made by a great big turtle but it didn't have any toenail marks on the sides. Also it went up to the electric fence a couple of times but wouldn't go under. I'm pretty sure that it was a coon with a broken back.

[kycountry]

We found several healthy looking coons around the swamp land here last fall dead. Most were smaller coons and all were in the same area of about 2 mile circle.. We were told by others it was Distemper..