Great speech Faye, lol. and you're right about a new litter will probably surface in the spring. I'm concentrating on keeping them out of my back yard especially away from the house. Any hole that I can cover or tree that can be wrapped with flashing or place that I can put a nail board is what I'm working on now. Thank you for your support in my efforts.
I don't know if they eat them but I don't think a cat would fare well in a fight. Our pet raccoons, when I was a kid, never messed with our cats, but then, they didn't mess with our chickens either. When I was letting our cats out, four of them frantically came in through the second-floor cat door, followed by a raccoon. Four cats together could probably take the raccoon, but cats don't work together.
They have territorial disputes that your adult cat is liable to lose. Kittens are at risk of being eaten.
From the site I just skimmed, it seems that harmony is most easily maintained when there's enough food to go around. That's pretty much a universal.
That makes sense. I have cameras outside where I feed the strays, and, from the videos, if a stray cat is eating at the bowl, the cat will move away when the raccoon comes up, but the raccoon doesn't seem to be threatening. A smaller cat will walk away when a larger cat comes up, to avoid a fight that he's going to lose. It's kind of like that. The one that chased my four cats into the house was a young one, probably just having fun with them, although the cats weren't amused.
Interesting. The cats around here can be seen during daylight not in the evening like I use to see them around at night. I wonder if the raccoons scare them into hiding at night, just a thought. There was one cat that would always make its way on my porch and sit in my seat at night. It would run away when I came outside to sit for a while. I haven't seen it. Piggy back on @Shirley Martin's question, I wonder if raccoons mark their territory.
I don't know but my little chihuahua does. When we go outside, she pees in certain spots over and over again. Just a drop or two but enough to mark her territory. "Big dogs better not mess with my territory! I'll tear them limb from limb."
I just read that they have "latrines" where they specifically go to the bathroom, and also rub their butts on objects (trees, rocks) in their territory. They are very territorial. The more I read about raccoon feces the more I gotta go back to my advice to send a letter Return Receipt to the city's critter control and cc: the Dept of Health. Maybe a one page flyer outlining the dangers of the poop and the contact info for the city could be stuffed in the local mailboxes.
Every tidbit of information that I can find about raccoons may be helpful. I'm already to use my pressure washer on the tree used to climb over onto the roof of the carriage. Do you think I should use Dawn dish detergent? I mean by spreading some on to the tree.