Babies will normally stay in the same spot until the mother returns, which may not be until the following night. If the baby raccoon is not in immediate danger from predators or weather, it is often best to leave them for 24 hours without disturbing them. Removing wildlife from their environment – especially a baby – can cause more harm than simply leaving it be.
🦝 If you’ve ever seen a frantic, grieving raccoon mother looking for her babies, it would shatter your heart and you would certainly never kidnap them. 🦝
However, it is important to recognize signs of distress. There are a few cases where you might need to intervene.
• The mother has been removed, relocated, or is dead.
• Has been crying continuously.
• Remains in the same spot for 24 hours.
• Eyes closed and no signs of mother.
• Is lying stretched out and is cold to the touch.
• Is injured or has been attacked.
• Walks up to humans non-aggressively.
• Has flies/ants/fleas/ticks on or around it.
For above situations, please keep pets and children safe, and visit our Found a Baby Raccoon page to find a Wildlife Rehabilitator near you immediately.
1. Attempt to reunite HEALTHY babies with Mom at dusk
✅️ Stay safe – do not touch raccoons with bare hands, and be sure small children and pets are inside
• Wear gloves as seen here or use a towel/robe as seen here and place babies in container near where you found them. More rambunctious juveniles can be “deactivated” by scruffing the back of their neck as seen in photo below.
• Leave HEALTHY babies out overnight with a gentle heat source (unless it is winter or near a busy road). Place inside a box with flaps folded over on top of a fleece blanket or old t-shirt (you can also fill with straw, hay, dried leaves, grass clippings, or shredded newspaper), or on a fleece blanket under a laundry basket, tote, or small trash bin turned upside down with a brick on top (something easy for mom to knock over), or on a fleece blanket inside a plastic bin (if bin is sealed, be sure to cut holes in top for air).
• For older kits that can climb out of a tote, use a tall cardboard box with newspaper taped over the top, or a tall plastic garbage can so that they can’t escape (but short enough that mom can still tip it over to retrieve her little hooligans).
❌️ DO NOT put any liquids in with young kits as they could drown
• If it is cold outside, you can warm an old t-shirt or fleece blanket in the dryer, place a heating pad on low inside half of the container (be sure it does not have auto-shutoff, and leave room for them to crawl off if they get too warm), or a warmed rice/bean sock, or a warmed bottle of water placed inside a sock . Be sure to re-warm water bottle or rice sock every hour.
✅️ Make sure kits are warm and safe from elements/predators
• Ensure babies are in a safe location away from roads, parking lots, pets, open water, or steep drop-offs, and protect them from the elements. If it is raining or snowing, be sure they are in a dry location. If it is hot and sunny, place them in the shade. Also protect the babies from predators. Some people have nailed a laundry basket high into the tree (just be CERTAIN babies cannot crawl out and are safe from hawks), then placed the babies on a blanket inside the basket to protect them from their dogs.
✅️ Keep your distance
• Mom will not come near if there is a lot of commotion. She will also be very protective over her babies, so give her space and time.
2. Play baby raccoon sounds at full volume on your phone to attract Mom
Click here for baby raccoon crying on roof
Click here for baby raccoon in back yard
3. NEVER RELOCATE any wildlife, and quadruple check to ensure the ‘humane’ pest control you’re thinking of hiring doesn’t relocate them either.
Some pest control companies advertise that they “humanely evict” raccoons, but end up either relocating mom (a death sentence for her) leaving the babies to die a slow, painful death, or gassing the mom and babies when they get back to the office, or taking the cage with mom and babies inside and submerging it under water so they slowly drown to death.
Click here, here, and here for examples of TRULY humane pest control companies and what you should be looking for.
• It is against the law to relocate in most states – it is cruel, inhumane, and spreads disease.
• Almost all relocations are a death sentence, especially for nursing mothers that literally grieve/stress themselves to death looking for their kits.
• Wild animals have social hierarchies and established territories. They become experts of surrounding water, food, dens, and shelters.
• The space you just made by clearing out one raccoon results several more arriving to “crouch” on the newly opened territory.