Well, it must be Raccoon season again. I’m getting lots of hits and emails on the “Pepsi of Death” pages. I’m also missing a lot of cat food in the mornings, which means I need to set out the live trap to catch the raccoon(s) or opossums that are eating it over night.

Live Trap

For those of you dealing with raccoons, I recommend a live trap. Don’t get the small squirrel sized ones. You’ll need the larger kind. They cost a few dollars more (about $50 if I recall), but they’re more likely to actually trap an adult raccoon or possum. I just leave a trail of cat food running into the cage and it usually lures them right in. When I trap them, its usually right next to a box of old stereo equipment that’s on their path from the barn to the cat food in the stable. Raccoons will grab ANYTHING that they can reach while in the cage, so I’ll need new cables if I ever want to use my old record player. Keep that in mind when you place your cage.

Once you’ve trapped a raccoon, you need to either kill it or let it go. If the former, there are a variety of methods I won’t go into here. Besides, it’s a LIVE trap. You don’t need to kill it. I recommend letting them go in the Allegan State Forest, but anywhere that’s more than 3 miles (some say 7 miles) away from your house should do.

Fly Bait and Cola

That said, the thing that everyone wants to know is: How to Make the Pepsi of Death(tm). Please keep in mind that, while effective, the fly bait in the Pepsi trick may be illegal in your neck of the woods. Or it may only be legal on your home property. Or maybe no one will care. Suffice to say that you need to be aware of these things before walking into the state fish and wildlife office  asking about fly bait to kill raccoons.

The Secret Recipe

Actually, there is no “recipe”. Just get some fly bait (it usually comes in a cardboard tube like Parmesan cheese only the contents are blue and granular) and some cola (it doesn’t have to be Pepsi). Get a cereal bowl that you never ever want to eat out of again. Cover the bottom of the bowl with fly bait. Really spoon it in there. Then, fill bowl with cola. Stir up with spoon you never ever want to eat with again. Set it out for raccoons. Find dead raccoon(s) about 3 feet from bowl in morning.

That said, there are refinements. One, I use a disposable plastic bowl. Two, I use a disposable plastic spoon. That’s not very refined, but this whole method is a glorious improvisation. This is the Git R Done school of problem solving here. You won’t find this in kit form.

Will your pets get into it? I don’t know. My barn cats don’t. My chickens don’t. For some reason, opossums don’t seem to either. Just raccoons. Maybe that’s the beauty of the Pepsi of Death solution.  Maybe I’m just really lucky. I don’t have any dogs, so I don’t know if they’ll go after this stuff or not. Please use caution in case your neighbor’s dog likes to wander over and drink Pepsi out of bowls you’ve left out. While it would be interesting to find out in a scientific, controlled experiment sort of way, you don’t want to be the one conducting that research!

The End

An old farmer taught me this method. It really does work. The raccoon will completely finish the whole thing. Then, they will expire less than 10 feet away. Some folks will be upset with you for killing a poor raccoon, but your kids will find a whole, dead raccoon less traumatic than finding gory chicken parts scattered all over the barn, so tell them you did it for the children.

By the way, dispose of the raccoon properly. I recommend burying the thing if you can. No sense in poisoning a turkey buzzard, too. At the very least, bag it up and throw it in the trash can. Make sure to warn your wife if she happens to be away on vacation so that she doesn’t come home a few days later and go to throw things out of her car when she gets home and opens the trash can to a couple of dead raccoons that have been ripening in the 90 degree sun for 3 days. Trust me. You don’t want this to happen. I just know that’s all.

When all is said and done, I prefer my live trap. It gets opossums and raccoons and is more humane. Unless you let them go in the parking lot at work and they run out into the street and get run over by a car. Trust me. You don’t want this to happen. I just know that’s all.