You may have been wondering, “when do raccoons have their babies?”. While raccoons are solitary animals, they do stick together with their siblings until they are at least a year old. A single mother can give birth to up to six pups during her lifetime. A raccoon’s gestation period is 65 days, and the babies can survive without the mother for up to two months.
You can also help by leaving a baby raccoon in an open bin. You can place a sign to warn others and keep the baby safe by keeping it out of the sun. If you do find a raccoon with a baby, you can leave it in the dark for a full night. But make sure to give the raccoon at least a night without food or water so that it can nurse.
Raccoons do not leave their babies alone in the nest for long. It usually takes them about three months to begin moving around and will be unlikely to be seen in a home until they are about six weeks old. However, if you are a raccoon owner, you should be patient with the babies. They are generally nestled in insulation, so you should wait until they reach a healthy age before attempting to pet them.
Raccoons give birth to their young during late March or early April. Their babies are born in attics, crawlspaces, and voids. They stay with the mother for six weeks, and then begin to move about with the mother. If you have an unattended den, you might want to get the mother raccoon out of the house, but make sure to keep an eye on the area.
If you suspect a raccoon is living in your attic or chimney, you should be very careful not to disturb the nest. You may cause the young to starve and the mother may try to reach them. Oftentimes, it’s best to wait until fall before moving or trapping a raccoon family. While trapping and moving a raccoon family can save your home from destruction, separating the mother and her young will not end in the best outcome.
During the early spring and early summer, female raccoons are usually pregnant for around two months. They give birth to one litter of two to five newborns. The babies are born blind and helpless, but open their eyes after three weeks. Juvenile raccoons stay with their mother through the fall and first winter. After that, they can breed and have another litter. The female raccoon will have a single litter a year, and usually has between four and five babies.
After about three months of age, the young raccoon will wean from their mother’s milk. They can leave the nest early in fall or early in the winter, but they are usually with their mother for the entire duration of the winter. As a matter of fact, they do not hibernate, preferring to huddle together as a family in their den. If you see raccoons, be sure to keep them in your neighborhood!
