Jacob Lehman runs Destination Wildlife Control, a Northern Virginia-based wildlife control company that performs emergency service calls, nuisance animal removal, dead animal removal, exclusion services, cleanup services, handyman services, home inspections, termite inspections, and general pest control. Here, he talks about what to do if there are baby animals on your property.
Do Not Disturb
There is an exciting time in mid-February through mid-March when squirrels and raccoons start having their babies. If you see a baby animal wandering around your yard, don’t disturb it. The mother probably isn’t faraway and you could endanger yourself by picking it up. I once watched a mother squirrel beat up a crow that tried to get the squirrel’s baby: Feathers were flying until the crow gave up, after multiple attempts. Both squirrels and raccoons will fiercely defend their babies. The mother squirrels and raccoons raise the little ones on their own and don’t let any other animals near them, since males will try to kill the babies in order to mate with the female. I have even had mother squirrels and raccoons come after me when I took their babies.
Bump in the Night
Within a couple of weeks of being born, baby animals start moving around. After about four weeks, they begin to explore the attic — especially when mom is not there. Squirrel mothers come and go from the attic during the day, and the babies (just like human teenagers!) spend a lot of time running around at night. Adult raccoons are outside at night, leaving the babies to ruin your sleep by partying in your attic all night.
Chirping in the Chimney
If you hear chirping sounds in your chimney later in the spring, it could be raccoons or maybe chimney swifts. Chimney swifts sometimes sound like rattlesnakes, and I’ve known people to mistake one for the other. Unfortunately, once chimney swifts have built their nest and laid eggs in the chimney, you cannot disturb them. You must let the babies leave on their own and then cap the chimney to prevent them from nesting there next spring.
At Destination Wildlife Control, when we receive a call about a nuisance animal, we try to determine over the phone what the animal may be. This helps choose the equipment we may need on the job. Once we get to your house, we look for clues to the animal’s identity if we have not yet figured it out. Our inspection may take a while because we not only look for the entrance, but also where other animals could possibly get in later. We set traps near the animal’s entrance to lessen the chance of catching a non-target animal and then check the traps every day for about a week. And we don’t want you to have any animals coming to visit you after we are done. So we work hard to find every vulnerable spot in your house. It is up to you to decide which repairs you want us to perform, if there are any to do after we are done with the job. If an animal gets through our repairs during the warranty period (usually three years), we will come back to remove the new animal and perform the new repairs at no expense to you. But, in eight years I have only had two calls where animals beat my repairs — and these were early in my career.
