Do male raccoons help raise babies

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Raccoons invest months in raising their young, and the females do their best to make sure their babies are protected. While there are no guarantees that they can keep them safe, mother raccoons hide their babies in safe spots, teach them how to survive on their own and fight off would-be predators looking for an easy meal.

Raccoon Baby Basics

Raccoons mate in the spring and then the father abandons the family and returns to a solitary lifestyle. The mother will usually have two to five babies, called kits, about 65 days after mating. Raccoon babies are born blind and helpless, so it’s up to the mother to find a safe place for them to live. She will look after them and care for them until they are able to take care of themselves, usually when they are 9 months to a year old.

Making a Secure Nest

A mother raccoon makes a den in a tree or she may move into a burrow that has been deserted by a woodchuck or another animal. Raccoons that live around humans will take advantage of other housing options and find quiet nesting spots in barns, attics, basements and outbuildings. The raccoon family typically remains safely in the den for about seven weeks, and then they’ll move house, finding a new den every few days to keep predators from discovering them.

Keeping Babies in Isolation

When a mother raccoon chooses her nesting site, she selects an area away from potential threats to her kits. This not only includes predatory animals, such as bobcats, owls and coyotes, but also other raccoons. Female raccoons tend to be territorial and may not tolerate sharing their area with other raccoon families. Only when her babies are agile enough to run and climb will the mother take them outside of the den to begin teaching them to fend for themselves.

Fighting and Biting

Although the male raccoons can get aggressive during the breeding season and may fight with other males, they don’t play a part in raising their babies. Females with young can also be quite aggressive and will stand up for their families if they feel their kits are threatened. They will fight to protect their young from any and all invaders, even well-meaning humans that stumble upon the nest. Though predators may grab kits if they’re left unguarded, when the mother raccoon is around hungry animals are likely to look elsewhere for a meal.

References

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With the exception of mothers and their young, raccoons live solitary existences. The mostly nocturnal raccoon is an opportunistic omnivore native to North America. Young raccoons typically stay with their mothers for about a year after their birth to learn how to find food. During this time, mothers are extremely protective and will attack anything that comes too close to their young.

Mating

The months of January, February and March are mating season for raccoons. Most mating occurs during March, although raccoons living in the more northerly portions of the animal’s geographic range tend to breed earlier than those to the south. During the mating season, males expand their usual geographic range, presumably to increase the possibility of encounters with females. Although females and males may den with each other temporarily during this time, they do not associate with each other after mating; females raise the young on their own.

Infancy

Female raccoons are pregnant for around two months before giving birth to a litter of between four and six young. Raccoons are born blind and completely helpless. Their eyes do not open until they are approximately 3 weeks old. They will be between 4 weeks and 6 weeks old before they are able to stand on their own. The mother weans her young when they are between 2 months and 3 months old, and they will leave the nest with her and start to hunt for food with their mother’s guidance and assistance. During these first forays out of the den, the mother may carry the babies individually in her mouth.

Adolescence

As the young raccoon continues to grow, his mother will teach him how to hunt on his own and how to climb trees to escape predators. By the time raccoons are around 5 months of age, they regularly forage on their own as well as with their mothers, but they continue to den with their mother and their siblings. This family unit remains intact throughout the adolescent raccoon’s first winter. Although raccoons do not hibernate, families stay together in the same dens, sleeping through the most severe winter periods.

Maturity

In early spring following the year they were born, young raccoons typically leave their mother’s den. The average adolescent raccoon becomes independent at 10 months of age, some leave home as early as 8 months and some as late as 12. Females are sexually mature at this point, although males do not reach sexual maturity until their second year. Even after they’ve reached maturity, young raccoons may choose to den near their mother or somewhere on their natal home range. Young male raccoons are more independent, however, and may move several miles away from their mother before establishing their own dens and home ranges.

References

Photo Credits

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Writer Bio

Jennifer Mueller began writing and editing professionally in 1995, when she became sports editor of her university's newspaper while also writing a bi-monthly general interest column for an independent tourist publication. Mueller holds a Bachelor of Arts in political science from the University of North Carolina at Asheville and a Juris Doctor from Indiana University Maurer School of Law.

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