Are you sure it’s a baby raccoon?
Older baby raccoons are easy to identify — they look like mini adult raccoons.
Newborn baby raccoons have a thin coat of greyish-brown fur. Their “mask” and the stripes on their tails usually show up within a few days of being born.
If the baby raccoon you’ve found is bigger than a regular-sized house cat, it should be treated as an adult. Go to this page instead.
Get the baby raccoon contained
To keep the baby raccoon safe while you figure out how to help it, get it contained.
Put the baby in a small cardboard box with a soft towel or t-shirt. Even on a warm day small babies can get cold, so give it a heat source:
- a clean sock filled with dry, uncooked rice, and microwaved for one minute
- a plastic bottle from the recycling bin filled with hot tap water
- an electric heating pad set to “LOW” and placed under half of the box.
Larger babies can be lured into a cat or dog crate, or place a cardboard box or laundry basket over top of them. Put something heavy on top of the container to keep them in one place.