In this picture, taken last night by Eric, Rusty enjoys some grapes on our back porch. Snowball, his mama, hangs back a little. Rusty and Snowball are blond (AKA cinnamon) raccoons. They are not albino raccoons. They have pigment and all the usual raccoon markings, but everything just comes in a lighter color.

Anyway... welcome, friends, to the 25th installment of the Critter Cafe!!!

If you are new to us, this is a place where Critter People come together to talk about anything they want to talk about.

We have two rules here:

1. Nothing is "off topic" in the Critter Cafe (... assuming, of course, that you have followed the forum rules)

2. All are welcome here

thanks for the Racoon photo ... Eric and Angela.

here is one off the internet.



Best Wish,
Byron

Aw! A raccoon kit. So cute! Thank you, Byron.

Snowball should have weaned Rusty by now. Not sure why she hasn't insisted he strike out on his own. Kids these days!

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

I can't find a way to post this here, so I'll have to post a link.

It's a cute little raccoon video that's going around on Facebook. The only thing that bothers me about it is that the popsicle probably contains high-fructose corn syrup, which is bad for humans and (probably) even worse for animals. It has been shown to cause some liver damage.

Warning: Bad word.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/724674537628580/permalink/1584127605016598/

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~Sue~

Aw! A raccoon kit. So cute! Thank you, Byron. Snowball should have weaned Rusty by now. Not sure why she hasn't insisted he strike out on his own. Kids these days!

Thank you Angela for your kind words.
one more from Jane Goodall.



https://www.ecowatch.com/jane-goodall-quotes-2361011467.html

Best Wishes,
Byron.

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.

Rusty came by this evening without Snowball. Perhaps she has finally cut him loose.

In memory of Sudan, who died this week.



Taken in a wildlife sanctuary in Kenya, 1986.

In memory of Sudan, who died this week.

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~Sue~

My "friendly" neighborhood squirrels are chewing the metal rings that hold up my chain link fencing in the backyard. Little devils.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Their diet must be lacking in iron. :-D

Cheers.

I was astounded that the squirrels were chewing on aluminum, so I googled it. Here's what I found:

Why squirrels chew on aluminum

Hope this helps.

(You could also help them out by buying more aluminum rings/fasteners. I'd bet they're quite cheap.)

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~Sue~

Thanks, Sue. I knew that squirrels had teeth like rabbits that grow all the time. I have to cover the woodwork baseboards and furniture legs in my house with hardware cloth, which is made out of a sturdier metal mesh than aluminum so my house bunnies don't damage anything with their gnawing, which is also partly due to a burrowing instinct. Rabbits love wiring, and that must be protected, too. The theory is rabbits think of wiring as roots. I've heard of house bunnies getting electrocuted by doing this on appliance cords.

The squirrels have even chewed up the edges of a lead plumbing vent pipe on my roof. That can't be good for them. I wonder why squirrels don't chew up the wiring on the telephone poles?

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Thanks, Sue. I knew that squirrels had teeth like rabbits that grow all the time. I have to cover the woodwork baseboards and furniture legs in my house with hardware cloth, which is made out of a sturdier metal mesh than aluminum so my house bunnies don't damage anything with their gnawing, which is also partly due to a burrowing instinct. Rabbits love wiring, and that must be protected, too. The theory is rabbits think of wiring as roots. I've heard of house bunnies getting electrocuted by doing this on appliance cords.

The squirrels have even chewed up the edges of a lead plumbing vent pipe on my roof. That can't be good for them. I wonder why squirrels don't chew up the wiring on the telephone poles?

They actually do... My best friend in San Jose lives in an area where telephone wiring is on poles and then drawn down to hook up to the box on the outside of the house. Color Pairs for phone are Primary: Blue/Blue-White, Secondary: Orange/Orange-White, Third: Green/Green-White, Brown/Brown-White, and two other pair colors that I don't remember off hand for a total of 6-Pairs to the house. His Blue Pair were chewed completely through at the Pole Source. AT&T chose to hook up the Green/Green-White to his Primary Land Line. They also Split the Green signal and "Bonded Paired" the Green with Orange for his U-Verse Internet and TV Services. Blue, at the house junction box, is left hanging in the wind because of the damages the squirrels have done at the Pole.

His house was actually built in the 50's; but, apparently AT&T, (at some point), planned ahead and ran the 6-Pair wire through the Pole System to the homes in the area. Otherwise, he wouldn't have been able to get "Bonded Pair" Service with U-Verse. Bonded Pair allows one, (depending on the number of feet from home to VRAD), to obtain the HIGHEST Internet Speeds U-Verse provides over phone line. For his area, and mine, our homes are close enough to the VRAD to give us 50Mb Internet DL/10Mb UL, and both he and my dad are signed up for U-300 TV Service Package. On Single Pair Internet with U-Verse one can get up to 24Mb Internet.

Anyway, back to the squirrels, they have really done a number on the phone wiring in San Jose.


TL

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TimeLord04
Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos

Thanks, TL. I don't know anything about the tech specs, but I do know this neighborhood was built in the 50's and has traditional pole lines and home drops, but we have never had any chewing critter issues on the wiring. I have no idea why not.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

Down here in SoCal there have a lot of power drops from the poles to the house that are two insulated conductors wrapped around a bare aluminum neutral conductor that has a steel core. They love chewing on them. Power company hates their guts. Flashing lights when you neighbor turns on or off something. The steel just can't handle the job of carrying the electricity. They have actually kidded about making the insulation taste good so they will get zapped, but I think the PETA people put their foot down.

I think the advice to give them something better to chew on is good advice. Make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard.

I have wood blocks for my house rabbits, and there's plenty of tree limbs for the squirrels. I've talked to other people about this, including a couple neighbors, and it seems the squirrels are singling my yard fences out for some reason.

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The mind is a weird and mysterious place

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Member of the People Encouraging Niceness In Society club.