Raccoons with Rabies?

Raccoons wandering around picking raspberries in broad daylight. I think they may have rabies..

Category:

Pets & Animals

Tags:

• Raccoon
• Raccoons
• daylight
• day
• light
• raspberries
• rabies
• cute

[taburineagle]

They DON'T have rabies, it's not uncommon for a mother raccoon and her kits to forage a little later than normal - the moms forage when there's less competition, and the kits don't really "know" they're supposed to be nocturnal yet. This would be just about the right time of year for something along those lines to happen (July-Sept. is when the kits usually come out for the first time), so it's nothing bad.

[Dreadnaught396]

@taburineagle I haven't even seen the mother. They were out all day just wandering around in my yard looking a little disoriented. One of them seems to have something wrong with its leg, possibly paralyzed? What if it is just early stages of rabies? I've lived here for 25 years and never seen this.

[taburineagle]

@Dreadnaught396 - Interesting! There are a few things it could be, they *could* be sick (I doubt it), the one kit's leg injury might have come from a fight, and something *could* have happened to the mother. Have you seen them at any other time, or just the one day? They could have gone out while the mother was sleeping also, stranger things have happened - :) One other theory is the one with the paralyzed leg could have been abandoned by Mom, and the other one is tagging along with him.

[Dreadnaught396]

@taburineagle found one dead in the grass near our front door this morning..their mother must have died or abandoned them before they were able to feed themselves :/



[taburineagle]

@Dreadnaught396 - That's sad :( That sounds like the most likely scenario, their mother was probably hit by a car or something similar happened to her, and they were just desperate to feed (explaining why they were out in the middle of the day - they haven't learned otherwise yet)