Goose Roundup Season Has Arrived: Here’s How to Plan Ahead

Goose roundup season requires careful planning; here’s what to know for this coming season. 

Canada Geese often create health and safety concerns for property owners and managers. From aggression to unsanitary and unsightly droppings, the presence of these large birds around your building can mean trouble.

A goose roundup is a very effective method of removing geese from your property. This simply requires a good game plan that RAC can help you build. Here’s what you need to know.

Don’t Miss the Window of Opportunity for Goose Roundups

Rounding up geese can only occur during their flightless period (approximately June 3 through July 10). During this time, geese molt which simply means they shed and regrow their flight feathers.

During a goose roundup, the birds are corralled, loaded onto a trailer, and safely relocated to an approved fish and wildlife area or taken to a euthanasia site. This decision is made on an individual basis by the property owner or manager.

Prior to relocation or euthanasia, the birds are inspected for metal bands used for research purposes to identify the gender, age, and migration patterns of individual birds. Information on banded geese is sent to Indiana’s Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) to better understand the species’ habits, as well as population growth and migration.

How to Schedule a Goose Roundup

While the window of opportunity is short, the good news is that scheduling a goose roundup is easy.

At Rusty’s Animal Control (RAC), we help you through the application paperwork that is necessary to acquire a permit for the removal of geese. These permits are managed through the Indiana Department of Natural Resources. To be eligible for a permit, geese-caused damage or expenses of at least $500 must be documented in the permit request. The costs can include clean-up and costs associated with eliminating potential legal risks. There is no charge for the permit.

Once the permit application is approved, we work with you to determine the best date for geese removal based on your schedule and molting season for the birds. All clients can choose between relocation and euthanasia of the birds. Watch below for a video of a goose roundup and relocation:

Contact us for help managing your geese problems

Mating Season For Raccoons Is Upon Us

January marked the beginning of mating season for raccoons and now through April, after completing their 63 day gestation period, they will be giving birth. On average, a raccoon litter will have three to six “kits”. It is very common for raccoons to give birth in homes whether it be the attic, crawlspace, or even in between your walls as they look for a safe place for their young.

Seemingly minor offenses like having an unsecured trash can or leaving out pet food and bird feeders can result in your property becoming the perfect place for raccoons to raise a litter.

Signs Of A Raccoon Problem On Your Property

Damage to your home can signal a raccoon problem. Raccoons can be exceptionally destructive creatures when trying to enter your home, only needing a 4-inch hole to enter a space. They will often pull apart vents, soffits, chimney caps or even parts of your roof to find a safe place for their young to be born. Once a raccoon is in your home, it can damage insulation, wiring and contaminate the space it chooses to occupy with urine and feces.

While strewn trash in the yard, toppled garbage cans or feces on your roof can be a sign of raccoons, your own animals may often try to inform you as well. Your pets may act strange when there is a raccoon in your home by constantly looking at the wall or ceiling as they may hear them before you do.

Health Risks Of Nesting Raccoons

Raccoon feces could potentially expose you to microscopic raccoon roundworm eggs. Raccoon roundworm is a parasitic worm that can cause blindness, brain damage and even death. Due to these health risks, it is important to hire a professional service like Rusty’s Animal Control for the removal of the raccoons, cleanup and repairs.

Did You Know Your Raccoon Damage Could Potentially Be Covered By Insurance?

When raccoons cause damage to your home, it is important to have your property inspected. After an inspection and determining the damage has been done by raccoons, we typically recommend reaching out to your homeowner’s insurance to see if your policy covers the roof, attic, and other damaged areas of your home. However, insurance companies often do not cover the damage done to your personal property within the home.

Raccoon Damage
Trapping Repairs

Damage done by a raccoon who entered an attic & the repairs done by RAC after trapping

Expert Help For Raccoon Problems This Mating Season

When removing a raccoon during mating season, it is especially important to make sure their young are removed from the area as well. After trapping a raccoon, we determine if it is male or female. If the raccoon is female, we ensure that she does not have any kits left in the space and then we help you make informed decisions on what to do next.

If you suspect that raccoons or other forms of wildlife have taken up residence at your home, office or commercial space, don’t wait—contact the experts at Rusty’s Animal Control (RAC). We can help solve your wildlife problems with exclusion, trapping, cleanup and prevention.

We are a licensed and certified wildlife control company with decades of experience in providing safe, effective and humane solutions to your wildlife conflicts. Contact us for help solving your raccoon and other animal control problems today.

Learn more about our raccoon control services

How Not to Become an Accidental Landlord to Families of Squirrels

It’s mating season for squirrels and unfortunately, it’s easy to unintentionally invite them to make your home or property theirs.

Bird feeders, garden waste, water, and other food sources all serve as a welcome mat for squirrels looking for an easy meal and a place to nest in the winter months.

These aggressive, bushy-tailed rodents will go to great lengths for a source of food and a cozy place to nest, even if they have to chew their way in.

In addition to building damage, squirrels can also be fearsome in defense of their nest or food and squirrel bites are not uncommon.

In one reported incident, a squirrel attacked and injured 18 people after finding a bounty of food at a property that was home to a bird feeder, fresh produce, and worse: a friendly resident who was providing hand-fed nuts.

In January, a New Hampshire House committee approved a plan to call for year-round open hunting season on gray squirrels after hearing of the costly and damaging effects caused by squirrels at local homes and farms. One representative who owns a maple syrup business, reported that the pests had cost his business as much as $20,000 a year in damage caused by chewing into buildings and other equipment.

Squirrel Mating Season Requires Vigilance

Squirrels carry their babies for about six weeks. In the Midwest, they typically give birth two times a year, between February and March and between May and June.

In the process of searching for a safe place to nest, they may be scouting your property for a prime spot like your attic, typically entering through a small hole or a vent along the roof line and using insulation and other materials found to line their nests.

Squirrel Nesting

Empty bird feeders are often a sign of squirrels nearby. While there are devices that can be used to deter them, squirrels are persistent and frequently find a way around any obstacles standing between them and a tempting source of food.

Experts Help For Squirrel Problems

If you suspect that squirrels or other forms of wildlife have taken up residence at your home, office or commercial space, don’t wait – contact the experts at Rusty’s Animal Control (RAC). We can help with exclusion trapping, clean-up and prevention.

We are a licensed and certified wildlife control company with decades of experience in providing safe, effective and humane solutions to your wildlife conflicts.

Let RAC solve your squirrel and other animal control problems today.

Contact us to learn more about squirrel control and removal

Managing the Threat of Bats, Rats & Mice in Winter

For those of us in the business of managing conflicts between humans and assorted wildlife, winter is the season of tiny occupations.

When the temperatures fall, rats, bats – and more commonly mice – will take advantage of human hospitality, migrating into office buildings, warehouses, retail sites and homes looking for food, water and a place to get out of the cold. It takes very little for your building to end up on their shortlist of winter get-away or hibernation sites.

Offices, warehouses and even manufacturing facilities are all targets for these little pests. Workplaces are full of food, from desk drawer snacks to garbage cans to lunchroom leftovers. Rats and mice are incredibly creative at getting in. And while you may think your facility is locked up tight, a space of as little as ¼ inch is as good as a key under the mat to a family of mice.

Uninvited Rodent Guests Bring Plenty of Baggage

Mice are the most common rodent complaint at this time of year, says RAC owner Rusty Fields. “Homeowners with million-dollar luxury homes, offices, stores, warehouses and storage units — everyone has mice,” he says. “Cold weather brings them in.”

How do you know when mice have moved in? While mice are excellent at hiding, they’re not quiet, and they’re not tidy. Don’t ignore reports of scratching or squeaking sounds in the walls, signs of chewing around baseboards or food cabinets, the smell of urine or any signs of the rice-sized waste pellets they leave behind.

Mice multiply quickly and leave behind more than a mess.

Many diseases are transmitted by mice and other rodents, including hantavirus, salmonella, and lymphocytic choriomeningitis (LCMV). Rodent urine and droppings that dry up and combine with dust and other airborne particles transmit dangerous viruses through inhalation. Rats spread leptospirosis and tularemia. Bats seeking warm, dark spaces to hibernate in during the cold months also spread viruses.

Your health is not the only thing at risk, however. Mice and rats damage walls, insulation, electronic cables and wiring with their constant chewing, leaving a building at risk of shorts and even fires.

Whatever type of rodent is rattling around inside your home, office, warehouse or residential building, quick action is needed to protect the health of your family, tenants, workers and customers. Don’t make the mistake of letting a “small” pest become a big problem.

Expert Help for Evicting Seasonal Rodent Intruders

Get professional help for all of your rodent issues. At RAC, we are licensed, professional and experienced in the best practices for eliminating – and preventing – rodent infestation. A professional inspection can do more than start the eviction process; it can show you where you may be inadvertently putting out the welcome mat for ongoing rodent intrusion.

Contact us to learn more about professional rodent removal, exclusion and remediation services from RAC. Our customers rely on us for safe, effective and cost-effective pest and wildlife solutions for commercial, industrial and residential properties.

Contact us to learn more about wildlife removal

The Truth about Feeding Birds & Other Wildlife on Your Property

From backyard birdfeeders to stray cats and curious squirrels, people often can’t resist the urge to feed the wildlife they encounter in backyards, parks and even workplaces.

Unfortunately, many fail to realize that when they set out the buffet for their favorites, they’re is-suing an open invitation to others, whose company can be far less charming.

Many problematic – and destructive – species are opportunistic feeders more than happy to make a meal of wild birdfeed or other snacks.

As more than a few backyard birdwatchers and gardeners have experienced firsthand, squirrels will empty birdfeeders, and rabbits, deer and more squirrels have a habit of making off with your hard-earned produce. But it gets worse: rats and mice also love bird seed along with the animals that prey on them. Want snakes under your bird feeder?

Prevent Winter Wildlife Conflicts

Those are just the best-known of the uninvited diners, and relatively minor consequences. A wide variety of stealthier and less welcome critters are attracted to birdseed, cat and dog food and just about any other available food source, including skunks, possum, raccoons, bears, mice, rats, and voles, especially as winter approaches.

As temperatures fall, your reputation for hospitality can start to get around, and some of these animals may decide that your property looks like a good place to stay over.

With more than two decades of experience as a licensed and certified wildlife control expert, it’s a message RAC owner Rusty Fields has had to deliver many times to homeowners, property managers and office workers – animal conflicts are not limited to raccoons in the attic.

“When you’re feeding wild animals, you’re creating problems and safety issues for yourself, your families and neighbors, your co-workers and employees,” Fields says. “Birds may be nice, but your bird feeder can also attract rodents and other pests.”

Best Practice for Feeding the Wildlife Include: Don’t

If you are landlord, building owner or proper manager, education is a key, if often overlooked, component of your wildlife control strategies. You might be surprised at some of the places that wildlife feeding takes place.

Not long ago, RAC was called out to an office building where employees had been hand-feeding a squirrel. A building tenant called RAC after an employee was bitten. RAC was able to trap the squirrel which, luckily, wasn’t rabid.

Your tenants may find them adorable, but squirrels do not make good office mates and have been known to get very aggressive.

While other rodents, like mice and rats, are less likely to be getting a deliberate handout, they have an excellent sense of where to find the unintentional kind.

Education & Experienced Help for Wildlife Removal

Education can begin with posting flyers in office and apartment building common areas. Best practices also include paying attention to the location and type of bird feeders on your property.

While you can install various devices on bird feeders to deter squirrels, even the best practices won’t entirely solve the pest problem, says Fields. As Montana wildlife control expert Stephen Vantassel wrote on his blog: “Bird feeders that feed animals other than birds are one of the surest ways to ensure that hiring a wildlife control operator is in your future.”

Animals are creative and, when they’re hungry, they’ll do whatever they can to get food.

Properties with outdoor amenities for tenants should also take care to prevent inadvertently inviting problems. Pools, fountains and garbage cans can all attract hungry and thirsty wildlife that can pose a danger to residents or employees.

RAC was called to an office building where it was believed a raccoon was getting into the garbage. It turned out there were seven raccoons, all trapped and removed from the premises by RAC.

Request a Site inspection

Contact us to learn more about ways to protect your property, your tenants or your family members from dangerous, destructive and unhealthy wildlife conflicts. For help with an active wildlife conflict or if you suspect that wildlife has taken up residence in your home, workplace or other commercial building, give us a call right away.

RAC is licensed, certified and experienced in the safe and humane management, prevention and mitigation of wildlife conflicts for commercial, industrial and residential properties.

Contact us to learn more about geese and other wildlife removal