Raccoons not too old to be carted around by mom

DEAR JOAN » Around 6:20 a.m. the other day I saw a raccoon go under our deck with something in her mouth.

She came back out and looked at me, hesitated for seconds, then went down the side of my house and climbed the fence. A few minutes later she came back with a baby raccoon in her mouth and went back under the deck.

Do raccoons have babies out of the breeding season time frame? I saw that they normally have them in May and June. I think she had the babies in another place and then brought them to my yard.

We have had raccoons and baby raccoons under our deck in the past. Curious Lori, Cupertino DEAR CURIOUS LORI » Raccoons begin mating in late winter and usually have one to six kits in April or May. The dates can vary, but you shouldn’t be seeing newborns this late in the year, and you probably weren’t.

Baby raccoons are born blind and helpless. Their eyes don’t open for three weeks after birth, and it’s another two to three weeks before they can stand on their own. They are weaned about three months after birth, and won’t venture out on their own until they are 8 to 10 months old. Even if the kits you saw were born in April, they’d still be very much dependent upon their mom.

You’re right that the raccoon gave birth somewhere else and has been forced to find new housing. This might not even be her first move, but carrying the young kits, one by one, to the new place is par for the course.

The kits will stay with their family through their first winter. DEAR JOAN » I have a lot of wildlife sharing my property. Recently I encountered a young rattler — lots of rattling even after I beat a hasty retreat — and in the same area I am finding empty snail shells in the morning. I have roof rats and thought it might be them until I saw the snake, and then found a snakeskin. Any idea who’s chomping on the snails? K.E., New Almaden DEAR K. » The rattlesnake’s diet consists of rodents, gophers, rabbits, ground dwelling birds, lizards and other small animals. They probably would eat a snail if one was presented to it, but I don’t think they are big snail consumers.

I think it’s most likely that your snails are being eaten by the roof rats, which in turn are being eaten by the snakes.

The rattler you saw might be a bit older than you think. Baby rattlers are born with a non-rattling bud that first appears when they are about 10 days old. Other rattles are formed with each skin shed. Young rattlesnakes shed more often than the adults, which shed about three times a year, but it still would take some time for the rattles to attain that heart- stopping sound.

Fun facts

If you think that the bigger the pet, the bigger the vet bill, you’d be wrong. According to a survey from Ask.Vet, a company that allows pet owners to text vets with their questions, the pet that rings up the most expensive health care bills are gerbils — 80 percent of gerbil visits have bills of more than $500, while only 42 percent of dogs have the higher bills.

I think I owe my dog an apology.