As winter comes around you want to be able to cozy up with family and friends. You most certainly don’t want to be sharing your home with wildlife critters such as raccoons, right? If you find yourself sharing your space with one of these animals, you’ll need to get animal control raccoon removal services to return your space to its raccoon free status.

Winter Preparation – The Raccoon Way

An idea of how raccoons prepare for winter will help you to keep the critters out of your space. A raccoon’s body starts to prepare by developing a thicker coat and storing more body fat. The coat helps to keep them warm as they sleep and the body fat allows them to go for long periods without eating. They do eat during the winter though.

The animals also start to establish their winter dens in preparation for the cold season. Additionally, winter is the time when female raccoons nurse their young. Very often a raccoon that is found indoors during winter also has a litter of young raccoons with her.

Human dwellings are attractive to raccoons because of the steady warm temperature and the abundance of food. Since raccoons do not really hibernate (they get into a semi-hibernating state called torpor), when they make their dens in your home they will be active from time to time. They tend to emerge from their dens during the late night to early dawn period to forage for food.

Keeping Raccoons at Bay this Winter

Raccoons are less likely to be attracted to your home if you don’t have food lying around. For a raccoon, food can be the uncollected garbage outside or pretty much anything else. They will eat pet foods that you leave outside or accessible to them. It is a good idea to keep your waste secure until collection day and to securely lock away your pet food if you don’t plan to host raccoons.

Pre-empt raccoons, prepare for their attempts to get into your home by repairing all possible cracks and holes through which the critters can travel. Also, consider installing or reinforcing barriers that will prevent raccoons from approaching your property. Raccoons establish dens in chimneys and attics so be sure to check these places (or better yet get the experts to check for you) to ensure that the animals have not already established dens inside the home. You don’t want to seal and barricade your space with raccoons inside!

Getting the Experts Involved

The experts at Skedaddle can help you to avoid raccoon presence in your home this winter. With our expertise in raccoon behavior and traits, we are well equipped to design and install devices that will keep these animals off your property.

If you are unfortunate enough to wind up with an infestation, we can help with that as well. We offer safe, effective and humane wildlife removal services. With our animal control raccoon removal service, you will benefit from a full assessment followed by strategic removal and preventive measures to avoid a recurrence.