We’re closing on our house on Tuesday morning. Last night, we went in to do the final walk-through and to get some measurements. Well, strolling through the backyard with my MIL, she said “Is that a little pond?”.
Well, slap my ass and call me Billy. We have a little running rock garden pond in our backyard. I knew the rock garden was there, but not the pond. Then she looked in the pond and said “Are there goldfish in there?”.
Yep! We have goldfish! Or, as my husband says “It’s a sushi bar for Oscar!” (one of our cats). Of course, I start flipping through the contract panicked “They didn’t say anything about goldfish!”.
I’m hoping they’re taking them with them, but I have a feeling the goldfish are ours. This could be bad. The best experience I had with goldfish was keeping my two college goldies, Sam and Gus, alive for nine months. All of my other fish have bitten it pretty quickly. And goldfish in winter? There’s a pump in there, so I’m guessing that’s either heating the pond or keeping the water running.
Oh, man, I hope they take these fish. I don’t know nothin’ bout carin’ for no big-ass goldfish! (And no, they aren’t koi - they’re just big-ass goldfish…).
It depends upon where you are and how deep the pool is.
They sort of chill out and just hang around in the Winter. Unlike Koi, they can live under ice.
I managed to kill our goldfish in the course of less than two hours. Don’t ask me how, 'cause I’m not real sure how I did it. The longest amount of time I’ve ever had a fish alive was 6 days. On the seventh, Vinnie bit the dust.
I’m trying to do some research and figure out exactly how to take care of these suckers. I’m going to have to name them - I can’t have pets without names.
Of course, none of this will be a problem if they’ll just TAKE the fishies with them.
My aunt built house out in the country on a lake. Then she put a koi pond in her front yard, complete with burbling stream and rock garden. She stocked the pond with 10 BIG koi. Well, she counts them a few days later and there are 8 koi. Next day, 7. Then 6. So she forces her husband to stay up all night and see who is stealing her expensive fish. Nothing happens. But 2 days later she’s down to 5 koi. So she gets her son to set up a motion activated camera.
A koi thief? Kinda. The local raccoon population were quite happy she had put in a fresh fish drive-thru.
Raccoons will wade but not swim. They will use pots in the pool as stepping stones to get in the pool and catch fish. If you move any pots away from the side, the coons won’t get in the pool. Worked for me.
I mostly leave goldfish alone. They eat insects, mosquito larvae and stuff. I have a small population in the pool.
I don’t know about swimming for hunting/fish-catching purposes, but they can swim. We used to take ours to the local pond to go swimming with us all the time. She had as much fun as we did (nothing like treading water with a wet 'coon on your head).
Wild coons will swim to escape a dog, for instance. When I moved pots to the middle of the pool rather than the edges, they quit taking fish.
Must be nice to have one as a pet.
“Nice” doesn’t begin to describe it. “Privileged” is more like it. Raccoons are one of the most fascinatingly intelligent animals that I’ve ever had a chance to get acquainted with.
I grew up on a farm, so upon occasion we would find a young one (or two, or three) by the side of the road (when MamaCoon got hit by a car), and take them home and raise them until they could fend for themselves. Mostly, they would go off on their own when they were of age (especially the males), but once in a while, they would stay around (we had a female that not only stayed tame and around the house for several years, but raised two litters of li’lcoons in a tree in our back yard).
The nemesis turned out to be the local kids who trapped 'coons for their pelts.
Bastards.
Raccoons are, hands down, one of the most interesting, FUN animals on the planet…and it’s always baffled me why they aren’t raised and domesticated for pets like other “non-traditional” animals (like ferrets, for example).
I stand corrected. I got the information from Stephen Meyer who writes the * Ponds and Pond Fish * column for * Aquarium Fish Magazine. *. He lives in Maine and brings his Koi inside for the Winter.
