Keeping Racoons Away from Bird Feeder

 For several years now we've had a battle with the numerous racoons that live under our deck and love to eat our birdseed every night.

We started with an inexpensive feeder from Menards on a shepherd's hook. The racoons would just push the shepherd's hook over in the middle of the night and feast. We upgraded to a 4" x 4" post with brackets and a nicer-looking feeder that also attracted more birds (when it wasn't depleted by racoons, which was every night). They couldn't push it over, but they could climb it easily and feast. We next added a cylindrical baffle (about $75) and spikes from Amazon. As you can see in this picture, the racoons could wrap their arms around this baffle and shimmy up and down it (we had this confirmed by catching one in the act), and it created a nice resting spot for them to sit and eat. We tried oiling the baffle, etc, to no avail.We installed new motion-detecting secutity lights and a Ring camera over the deck, and at one point, it detected motion and I looked out to see FIVE racoons sitting on our deck. I yelled at them and they scurried into the back yard. Andy played with higher brackets off the top of the post (another $40) and different positioning of the baffle, but that didn't help.

The cylindrical post baffle is clearly no obstacle

We acheived a real breakthrough when we added a second, round baffle on top of the cylindrical one (and yet another $62). Between these two baffle types, the racoons have not been able to get to the birdseed or suet for 6 weeks. We're calling this a success so far.