I live about 4 miles from the ocean here in mississippi. and we have a raccoon who comes to our house and eats some of our cats food and the slop we put out. The weird thing is he not only comes out at nighttime but he comes out in the day too! plus when hes eating the catfood when my cats are around they'll eat it too right next to him! its weird...and no the raccoon doesnt have rabies. or we would not let him near our cats (srry but my dad would probably shoot him if he had rabies) ..but yea. does anyone else have raccoons that do that or anything.
2007-07-10 11:20:40 · 4 answers · asked by ♥Lucy♥ 1 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Zoology
Though raccoon are known as nocturnal animals, there are some who became active on day and sleep at night. Most of those are those who had been in captives and were trained to be not nocturnal in nature. The raccoon with you could have "visited" once during the day and found that more foods are available thus urging to return on similar time. With such raccoon eating next to your cat highly proves that it has been domesticated otherwise it would had already harmed your cats. Rabies may be entirely without visible symptoms in the raccoon and its rabies is as dangerous to humans as any other strain so be careful.
2007-07-10 12:44:40 · answer #1 · answered by ♥ lani s 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Its not exactly natural behaviour, but normal. Raccoons have followed civilization and adapted to it. Your particular raccoon has figured out that there is food available during the daytime but not at night, so he turns up during the day to get it.
Even though that raccoon isn't rabid, its probably a good idea to buy a round of rabies shots for you, your family and the cats as well if you haven't already done so. It isn't rabid now but may be rabid some day in the future.
2007-07-10 11:34:50 · answer #2 · answered by travelhun 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
coons are opportunistic creatures, if they find a food source they go to it and eat, unless the cats fight it off, or you chase it away it will come back as long as there is food out there. we had a cat that did the same, i would chase it, the dog would chase it, but if we put out food it would be right there chowing down.
it's survival instinct.
2007-07-10 11:30:06 · answer #3 · answered by Tim C 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
He must have been "semi-domesticated" by people. I had a similar situation in the past.
2007-07-10 11:29:48 · answer #4 · answered by gfulton57 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋