Killed a coon yesterday..

I remember reading years ago that coons can carry a parasite that can cause blindness in small children. You can encounter feces ten years old and still pick the parasite up.

I wish I'd had a gun on Thursday. I was out riding next to the creek and there was a pair of young coons up a locust tree. One got hurt skittering up when they heard me and laid at the foot of the tree chattering and jerking. The other one was up about ten feet and looked terrible. Skinny, rough haircoat, deflated ears, sick. This tree was about ten feet away from a dead coon carcass that had been there awhile. No obvious signs of harm, just dead. I'd seen another one floating in a pond not far away.

I'm glad I just had my dogs vaccinated for distemper and parvo. Rabies was current.

I also would avoid feeding my chickens anything that isn't in sparkling good health. We are what we eat; and we are what they eat, too. Rabies can be passed in bodily fluids; and to me it's too risky to transport something infected with a disease so virulent.

My vet was exposed to rabies when he put his hand in the mouth of a sick foal. He said the shots weren't any too pleasant; and his staff was none to thrilled to have to get them too.

I would normally never advocate shooting anything on anyone else's land. But I imagine my neighbor would have thanked me.

On the same ride I saw a coyote. Middle of the day and up close, too. He came to get a drink. It wasn't hot. It's the second time this spring I've seen one out in the day.

__________________
‎"The trouble with quotes over the Internet is that you never know if they are genuine." - Abraham Lincoln

The raccoons that I caught seemed healthy enough. They should be after eating some of my chickens! I caught them at night in a trap beside my coop and they seemed calm enough in the trap before I dispatched them. There were probably a few things I could have done with them but I was a bit paranoid about the parasite I read about so I took precautions like the rubber gloves to handle them and just laid them out in the back field.

i would not skin that coon, that was not normal for a wild animal, best to rid your self of it very carryful.

Welp, only one human fatality traced to raccoon rabies(according to wikipedia). one. As opposed to well over a million deaths from automobile accidents. So, I guess everybody thats super cautious about raccoons also walks to the store. Incidentally, there is a shot for rabies. I've not read about one for getting crushed in a car wreck.

Here's a pretty good site for the common diseases of racoons, FYI. Doesn't discuss transmission to humans, though. Common Infectious Diseases of Raccoons

geo

I've raised many raccoons to adulthood and beyond. Mine all stayed super friendly, better then most dogs. No one ever turned wild or mean, they loved everyone. They were leash trained and would go on walks with me. They were potty trained and lived in the house. That said the parasite they carry is a round worm that can cause blindness and neurological problems. But you have to have contact with the feces and then eat the worn or the eggs.
So WASH your hands! No big deal if your remotely clean.

Another parasite of importance in raccoons is Baylisascarisprocyonis, which is an intestinal roundworm of raccoons. Baylisascaris is a known cause of cerebral nematodiasis and ocular and visceral larval migrans in domestic and non-domestic animals, and humans. Transmission com-monly occurs through the ingestion of infective eggs, which results in aberrant migration in hosts other than raccoons.

Sorry you had to do it, you are stronger then me. Sometimes we have to be stronger to keep them from suffering. Hopefully he wasn't just a youngster who wasn't good at hunting yet and was just hungry.

__________________
http://silvercreek-farm.blogspot.com
Livin' the good life

Here's one good link discussing raccoon rabies and transmission risks:
Behavioural Aspects of Raccoon Rabies Transmission

I note this quote There is another lengthy analysis of the raccoon virus variant here:
Rabies virus (with special reference to raccoon rabies variant) - Definitive Mammal Host Species (Viral Reports)

My takeaway from skimming over the information would be something like this:
There IS a distinct rabies strain identified with raccoons. There is a confirmed case from 2003 of a human fatality from it; it is not clear how many other human cases have been tested, given the technology is fairly recent, for the precise strain. It seems that the virus in infected raccoons is especially concentrated in saliva and spread by bites; medical services have been aggressive about giving protective vaccinations to humans with exposure risks, including having skinned likely infected animals, so such precautions may be in large part why there aren't more "human infections" on record. Also, of course, people directly bitten by a raccoon are extremely likely to seek care and have the shot series. The "raccoon variant" does spread widely to other animals (that skunks seem often to have rabies without obvious symptoms may be due to this strain in large part), including such unexpected species as rabbits, rodents, and ungulates (cows and horses).

It DOES look like this strain is less virulent/ deadly to many possible hosts including humans than is the classic "more canine" rabies strain. I wouldn't want to play in traffic on an interstate at 3 AM just because it's less deadly than during rush hour, though! I'd say killing a coon acting like the OP described is 100% essential; any mammal around your premises could be infected by it otherwise and the behavior described is typical of rabies infection. The dead animal should never ever be skinned, rather disposed of somehow with caution... gloves, no contact with other household or wild animals.

The rabies shots have to be given before you get rabies, though. Once you get it, it's almost 100% fatal. And it's a horrible way to die. Caution is warranted with animals not acting right, especially those animals that are more likely to be rabid, like coons and bats.

__________________
I blame the media blamers.

This is incorrect. Rabies can only be transmitted via mucus (including saliva) and blood. The virus would not survive a trip through the digestive tract.

Even if I were starving, and hadn't eaten in three weeks, I'd not eat anything suspected of being rabid... not worth it...

One slight nick, or an open wound on your hand... (I've got half a dozen at least, boo boos on my hands, right now) and get infected with rabies???

Burn barrel here too... and throw in firewood for several hours, to completely consume the carcass (diesel on hand to keep wood burning, if still slightly wet)....

__________________
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity. Seneca
Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival. W. Edwards Deming

According to the CDC, the number of human rabies cases are between 2 and 3 a year. Ya'll are terrified of nothing. On the other hand, bet you guys aren't scared of ice cream, driving in cars, and so on. Which causes hundreds of thousands of deaths a year. I'm glad I'm me. I'd rather be surrounded by raccoons than be eating ice cream and driving down the road at the same time. The odds of surviving are 500,000 to one.

I was only repeating what I was told by the CDC while doing my research. Maybe they've decided it doesn't? It _has_ been a few years.

Back then, they also said rabies was only transmitted by lymphatic fluid (saliva is lymphatic) and not blood (they _can_ find antibodies to rabies in the blood, but not the virus, that's why there's no blood test for rabies). But, research has been moving forward and I haven't kept up with it

Of course, when I was a kid, they said opossums couldn't get rabies as their body temp is lower than most animals, which does keep them from catching a lot of the diseases that kill their dinners, but since they have since positively tested opossums, that has been disproved, too.

It may be that, since rabies can be given to raptors (though they apparently can recover and survive with antibody titers) and they can pass West Nile (another rhabdovirus) through feces, they refused to say it couldn't be passed that way? Don't know. I'd love to see any recent research you've read on it. It's a subject I'm very interested in and wish I'd kept better track of studies on through the years.

Not exactly. Its only 100% fatal without treatment and you CAN be vaccinated after being infected and not contract the virus.

Can the vaccine protect you if you've already been exposed to rabies?
Yes. The vaccine is only routinely recommended for persons in groups at high-risk of exposure. Vaccinating the entire population against a rare disease they are unlikely to ever encounter isn't practical, yet anyone could have an unexpected encounter with a bat or other potentially infected animal. Fortunately, because rabies usually has a long incubation period, the body has time to respond and develop antibodies to a vaccine given after an exposure.
Rabies Vaccine Questions and Answers

There has actually now been a handful of people without the shots before or after exposure that have survived! One girl recovered with no signs of neurological impairment I wouldn't bet my life on it, by any means, but it gives hope to people who don't know they've been exposed and are looking at the disease from that angle.

I said once you GET rabies, it's almost 100% fatal. Yes, you can be vaccinated after exposure, but if you wait until you have symptoms, you're pretty much dead. I know of one case where someone survived, but that's it. Best to just avoid exposure.

__________________
I blame the media blamers.

It would appear ignorance wins again. a raccoon in the daylight is not uncommon. especially in the springtime.

I'd rather be considered ignorant than take a chance with a coon. I've had no end of problems with them here, as this house had been abandoned and coons were living in the front porch before I bought the place. It seems they have some sort of ancestral memory; for years more kept coming back and trying to rebuild nests in the front porch roof. At first I just tried deterrents, but the darn things were big, aggressive, nasty, and destructive. The uneasy truce ended when DD was getting firewood off the porch and one of them crawled up the post and snarled at her. That was it, we're all done being nice. He was quickly dispatched with a .22. I don't enjoy killing God's creatures, but I'll never put up with something that could be a threat to my kid. It took better than ten years and shooting over a dozen of them before they stopped trying to colonize my house.

__________________
I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in whom I trust." Psalm 91:2
Stop by and visit! www.greenleafhomestead.blogspot.com

You are lucky it came in the afternoon. Mine usually come at 3AM, when it is raining. A quick grab for the gun and the boots and it me out there in my ------ tightes going coon hunting.

And coon decompose quickly in a compost pile... kinda freaks the kids out when you ask them to get some compost for the garden and they start screaming about a skeleton in the pile!

__________________
John
Belfair, Washington

Appreciate and respect that you have empathy for the animal and didn't kill it just for "fun". But since its behavior seems unusual, they are not even close to an engangered species, and you have your domestic critters and people to worry about - don't beat yourself up. Sounds like you make a prudent decision.

The only raccoon I have seen out and about in the daytime and showing no fear of humans, was sick with distemper. It was disoriented and foaming at the mouth and we shot it ASAP. (We contacted our vet or somebody who knew there was a distemper outbreak, and not a rabies outbreak, going on at that time.)

__________________
It is still best to be honest and truthful; to make the most of what we have; to be happy with the simple pleasures and to be cheerful and have courage when things go wrong.
Laura Ingalls Wilder

So a couple days ago i ran into another coon, walked right past the house at about 7pm. Me and the dog chased him and he went up a tree. I had betsy but didn't shoot him, I figure i'll give him a chance to be smart and take the hint. Haven't seen him since, but I hope i won't regret giving him a pass.