Instructions
Seed your feeder only enough for a single day. As long as the birds clear the seed by nightfall, you will eliminate the food supply for nocturnal raccoons.
Use a Plexiglas mounting pole for your feeder with a large enough circumference that the raccoons will have difficulty climbing it to get to the seed. As an added measure, top it with a squirrel guard. The guard looks like an upside down bowl between the top of the pole and your feeder. Such guards are available at bird supply or pet stores.
Bring your feeder in at night, especially in June when female raccoons are lactating. A hungry mother eating for several can be a pretty persistent pest, so eliminating the temptation for her entirely will solve the problem.
Use a raccoon repellent. Some are made from hot chili peppers while others use predator urine from coyotes or foxes as the main ingredient. The repellents come in spray bottles or gallon jugs. Use it on and around the support pole of your feeder.
Limit the raccoon̵7;s access by keeping your feeder away from tree branches, deck railings or anything that your pesky visitor can use to reach the feeder. Raccoons are clever, so even if you think there is no way one could use that porch swing to reach a nearby feeder, think again.
How to Keep Raccoons From Eating My Bird Seed
Bird feeders are nice additions to any yard, but birds rarely are the only animals that use the feeders. The great outdoors is full of hungry creatures as evidenced by the number of devices and tricks bird watchers use to keep raccoons and other critters out of their bird feeders. You can mitigate the problem, but raccoons are the great omnivorous opportunists of suburbia, so temper your expectations because the level of success likely will vary.