Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Raccoons Start a Hog Massage Service at the Deer Feeder




I wish I knew who to give credit for the following pictures that I got in an email this last week. I have searched the web to no avail, but these are some great game camera pictures. It appears that the raccoons at this feeder have started a massage service for hogs after they have finished dinner. I suspect that this is really some sort of mutual benefit for both species. My guess is the raccoons are feeding on ticks or some other parasite that is on the hog and the hogs put up with the coons removing the parasite from them. I have seen hogs and coons give each other a wide berth at the feeder and the hogs have even run the coons off. This behavior is unusual and is probably a learned behavior just in this locale. If you have any different or unusual game cam pictures send them my way and I will post them up for everyone to see. Enjoy the outdoors and keep the cameras running, Wild Ed






3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thought I had seen everything until now.

ChileFarmer said...

At first I thought , now thats funny as can be. But then I thought really strange. I know the same thing happens with other animals, so it does happen. a learned behavior? Bill

Bob S said...

Now that sure is peculiar, I wonder if they are picking ticks or something off that hog!

BTW Albert over at the Rasch Chronicles highlighted your European Skull Mount post a few days ago, very nice work Wild Ed!

http://trochronicles.blogspot.com/2012/01/making-european-skull-mount-with-wild.html

Your fiend,
Big Bob