While raccoons eat almost anything they find, what raccoons cannot eat and why? Here are the answers.
Well, raccoons just happen to eat a lot of things and little to no food that raccoons won’t eat. If you have ever seen raccoons, you probably know raccoons do not miss any food or edible especially easy food that requires little to no work like leftovers. Raccoons eat a whole lot of things and aren’t limited to any type of food. However, what do they do not eat? Here’s what.
The Simple Answer…
Despite omnivores, raccoons cannot eat certain things such as onions, chives, avocado, chocolate (can raccoons eat chocolate), candy, sugary items, salt, pepper, leftovers, copper, raw beans, unshelled nuts, sunflower seeds, tobacco, spinach, eggplants, coffee, or tea, alcohol, raw popcorn, bleach, laundry detergent, kitchen, bathroom stuff, pesticides, herbicides, and rodenticides. Not only raccoons, but these food are also bad for dogs, cats, birds, and many more animals.
With that though, raccoons eat these foods but are attached to many sicknesses and diseases. Some of them are baylisascaris procyonis, rabies, parvovirus, and distemper virus. Rabies is the most well-known and transmissible disease that can also transfer to humans. These can be also toxic for raccoons.
What Do Raccoons Cannot Eat?
While raccoons are omnivores, they’ll eat plants, tree bark, vegetables, animals — you name it. But they prefer easy meals which means they search for readymade food that doesn’t require killing or hunting. But that doesn’t mean they do not hunt. If there is less food or they find easy prey, they will tear it and turn it into food.
Just because raccoons aren’t picky eaters doesn’t mean they can eat anything. Though they might eat foods that they aren’t supposed to but it involves risks and disease. Here are they.
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High-Sugar Foods
From weight gain to heart disease to diabetes, high sugar foods have a lot of downsides. Research shows sugar usage is the cause of many diseases. Excessive consumption of sugar may also increase the risk of cancer, stomach, diabetes, and many more, according to Healthline. High sugar foods are candy, cakes, cookies, pies and cobblers, sweet rolls, pastries. Also, sugary drinks and beverages such as coca-cola, Fanta, coke, sprite, and any other drink that includes soda and sweetened including sweetened tea. More importantly, raccoons cannot eat alcoholic drinks and any food or drink that contains alcohol.
- Related: Why Dolphins Jump Out Of The Water? Is it for Fun?…
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Salty Foods
While salt is known for the taste of the food, it is more harmful than sugar and it takes less salt than sugar to ill or kill a person or raccoon. High intake of salt increase blood pressure, heart failure, and heart attack, kidney stone, fluid retention, stroke, and osteoporosis. But that doesn’t mean raccoons cannot eat salt at all. Salt has many essential nutrients which are necessary for the body but should only be used in fewer amounts.
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Hot Pepper, onions, Chives, Garlic
Onions, chives, garlic might make dish tastier for us but can make serious problems or kill for raccoons. In fact, it is popular for poisoning animals especially dogs. As most human foods include either one or all of these, they are either harmful or fatal to raccoons. The early signs of affecting are vomiting, gastroenteritis, irritation of the mouth, drooling, nausea, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea.
As much as they are bad, raccoons also hate the scents which are also used as repel for raccoons.
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Fast & Junk food
While junk and fast food may taste so good, it feels so bad and causes many health problems including for raccoons like dental cavities, carbs, fat, increased blood sugar, and insulin. There are many peaks and valleys to it but overall, it has quite a lot of downsides that can affect the reproductive, nervous, and respiratory system. Not only that, but it also affects the digestive and cardiovascular.
Despite how bad it is, raccoons are popular for eating our leftovers at night from the bins which mostly contain of fast and junk food. Beside that, raccoons are also attracted to shiny things that they would like to collect. Here’s why.
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Seeds, Nuts, Beans & Eggplants
Like birds, certain seeds are also toxic for raccoons. Most fruits contain a small hardened pit that are filled with the chemical amygdalin which harms brain, heart and lungs. The amount of harm it do depends on the amount of the chemical a pit contains and how large is the kernel.
In addition to nuts containing toxic molds that cause digestive problems, nuts also are high in fat and cause obesity and pancreatic problems. Despite how raccoons love eggplants, it can help vomiting, or upset stomach.
Do Raccoons Also Eat BirdSeed? & How to Prevent It?
Birdfeeders are not only used by birds, squirrels and raccoons also feed on it. While squirrel is pretty known and is visible during the day eating birdfeeder, however, raccoons are the hidden bandits of it. That means raccoons also rely on birdfeeders and eat bird seeds from them.
And not only that but if you have a squirrel feeder, raccoons may also be sharing the food or worse enough it might have turned squirrels into food. Same with birds. However, there are different ways to stop raccoons from deterring it.
Do Raccoons Eat Any of These Food? Do They Like It?
While raccoons should not use these foods, they eat all of them in whichever amount they get despite how harmful they are. Consuming little is fine like a little salt on food but excessive amounts of those food will definately do more harm than good. In some foods, the bad cannot be splitted like sugar from fruits but when possible, it should be separated like sugary drinks.
Raccoons forage for food all night and when they find one or more of these foods, raccoons cannot stop themselves eating them until they finish it. Not only that, raccoons like almost every food we eat.
What Is A Healthy Diet for Raccoons?
The ideal diet for raccoons would be a mix of plants, fruits, and meats such as fish, frog, shrimps, birds. From fruits, raccoons prefer to eat apple, banana, grapes, orange, mango, cherry, strawberry, cranberries, watermelon and more. Including that, raccoons also enjoy vegetables literally any vegetable they see.
But that’s not the only thing they eat, if raccoons do not find any of those food and food is scacre, raccoons will probably go for more difficult meal like rabbits, squirrels, chickens especially when they have babies. They will even fight with each other for it.
What Do Raccoons Like To Eat The Most? (Traps Food)
As much as raccoons love these food, they are also a good bait for trapping them. Some of the best food for baits are marshmallows, wet cat food (the stinkier, the better), fresh fruit, canned tuna or salmon, a whole egg, sweet corn on the cob, and sugar or honey-coated veggies.
Although raccoons live and make their den near food source, however, if they couldn’t find a good place for den or a food source has dried, they travel 5-10 miles far away for food. And also if you anytime wanted to release a trapped raccoon, its better to relocate it more than 10 miles away.
Final Thoughts
raccoons eat anything edible including whatever we eat just like squirrels. As intelligent mammals, we assume whatever they eat is right and nutrition but the fact is they cannot choose the right food they should eat and cannot differentiate good and bad food from each other. Therefore, they eat whatever they find without realizing the effects. But they shouldn’t.
Other than those, raccoons cannot eat dried products, avocado, grapes any sweet items.