Baby raccoons, called kits, survive on milk for roughly the first seven to eight weeks of life, then gradually transition to soft solid foods before eating the varied omnivorous diet of an adult. If you’ve found an orphaned kit, the single most important thing to understand is that what it eats and how it eats both matter enormously. The wrong formula, the wrong feeding position, or the wrong timeline for introducing solids can cause life-threatening problems. This guide covers each feeding stage, the hazards to watch for, and why professional wildlife rehabilitators are almost always the right call.
Why Professional Help Should Be Your First Step
Before opening your fridge or searching for a bottle, consider whether the kit actually needs your help. Mother raccoons frequently leave their young unattended for hours while foraging, especially during the day. A kit that is warm, quiet, and has a full-looking belly is probably not orphaned. A kit that is cold, crying persistently, visibly dehydrated (skin that doesn’t snap back when gently pinched), or found near a dead adult likely does need intervention.
Even then, feeding it yourself should be a last resort. Licensed wildlife rehabilitators have the training, supplies, and legal authority to raise raccoons for release. In most U.S. states and Canadian provinces, keeping a raccoon without a wildlife rehabilitation permit is illegal, and raccoons that become habituated to humans rarely survive when released. Your best move after finding a genuinely orphaned kit is to keep it warm in a box with a towel-wrapped heat source, avoid feeding it anything, and contact your nearest wildlife rehabilitation center as quickly as possible.
That said, rehabilitators aren’t always reachable immediately, and some people live in areas with no nearby facility. If you’re temporarily caring for a kit until professional help arrives, or if you’re working under the guidance of a rehabilitator, here’s what you need to know.
The Milk Stage, From Birth Through About Eight Weeks
Newborn raccoons depend entirely on milk. In the wild, they nurse from their mother multiple times a day. Orphaned kits need a commercial milk replacer designed for wildlife. The two products most commonly used by rehabilitators are Esbilac (a puppy milk replacer) and Fox Valley formulas made specifically for raccoons. Esbilac is easier to find in pet stores, while Fox Valley formulas more closely match raccoon milk composition. Either works, but they need to be mixed according to the label’s instructions and warmed to roughly body temperature before feeding.
What you absolutely should not use is cow’s milk, goat’s milk, or human infant formula. These have the wrong balance of fat, protein, and sugar for raccoon digestion and commonly cause diarrhea, bloating, and malnutrition. Soy-based formulas are similarly inappropriate. Even among wildlife milk replacers, the powder form mixed fresh is better than pre-mixed liquid versions, which tend to cause more digestive upset in raccoons.
How Much and How Often
Feeding frequency depends on the kit’s age, which you can roughly estimate by its size and development. Kits under one week old are tiny, with closed eyes and ears, and need feeding every two to three hours around the clock. By two to three weeks, the interval stretches to every three to four hours. Once their eyes open around three weeks, feedings can shift to every four to five hours. By five to six weeks, three to four feedings a day is usually sufficient.
The amount per feeding is generally about five percent of the kit’s body weight in milliliters. A 200-gram kit, for example, would get roughly 10 mL per feeding. A small digital kitchen scale is essential for tracking weight and calculating meals. Kits should gain weight steadily; a kit that plateaus or loses weight needs its formula concentration or feeding schedule adjusted, ideally with guidance from a rehabilitator.
Feeding Equipment
Very young kits do best with small pet nursing bottles or syringes (without needles). Miracle Nipples, a brand of silicone nipple designed for small wildlife, are widely recommended because they allow the kit to suckle at its own pace rather than having formula pushed into its mouth. A standard pet bottle nipple often has a flow that’s too fast for a tiny raccoon, which creates a serious risk.
The Danger of Aspiration
The single biggest feeding hazard for baby raccoons is aspiration, which means formula entering the lungs instead of the stomach. This can happen when a kit is fed on its back (like a human baby), when the nipple flow is too fast, when the kit is fed while stressed or struggling, or when formula is administered too forcefully through a syringe. Aspiration pneumonia can develop rapidly and is potentially fatal. A case report from PAWS Wildlife Center documented a healthy orphaned raccoon that developed severe aspiration pneumonia after being gavage-fed (tube-fed directly into the stomach). The kit experienced immediate respiratory distress and depressed alertness. It took two weeks of treatment to resolve the pneumonia, even under professional veterinary care.1Wildlife Rehabilitation Bulletin. Successful treatment of aspiration pneumonia in a juvenile raccoon (Procyon lotor)
To reduce aspiration risk, always feed a raccoon kit belly-down or in a natural crouching position, never cradled on its back. Let the kit control the pace of suckling. If formula bubbles from its nose, stop immediately, hold the kit with its head lower than its body to let fluid drain, and gently wipe its nostrils. Wait until its breathing sounds completely clear before offering more. If a kit is wheezing, clicking, or breathing with its mouth open after a feeding, aspiration may have occurred and veterinary attention is needed urgently.
Stimulating Elimination
Young kits cannot urinate or defecate on their own. In the wild, the mother licks their genital area to stimulate this. For orphaned kits under about four weeks old, you need to mimic this after every feeding by gently rubbing the area with a warm, damp cotton ball or soft cloth. Without this step, the kit’s bladder and bowels won’t empty, which can become a medical emergency. Once the kit is mobile enough to eliminate on its own, usually around four to five weeks, you can stop.
Healthy raccoon kit stool on formula should be yellowish-brown and formed but soft. Green, watery, or mucus-filled stool often signals that the formula concentration is wrong, the kit is sick, or it’s being overfed. Constipation, where the kit strains but produces nothing, can mean dehydration or insufficient stimulation.
Transitioning to Solid Foods
Somewhere between six and eight weeks, raccoon kits start showing interest in solid food. Their eyes are fully open, they’re walking and climbing, and they begin chewing on things in their enclosure. This is the window to start weaning, though formula remains part of the diet for several more weeks alongside solids.
The easiest first food is the kit’s own formula mixed into a thin gruel with a small amount of plain baby cereal (rice or oatmeal, no added sugar or flavoring). Offer this in a shallow dish. Kits will wade through it, smear it everywhere, and eventually start lapping and chewing. Within a few days, you can thicken the mixture and begin adding small pieces of soft food.
Good early solid foods include:
- Fruits: small pieces of banana, watermelon, grapes (cut in half), and blueberries
- Vegetables: cooked sweet potato, peas, and green beans
- Protein: scrambled egg (no seasoning), small pieces of cooked chicken, and high-quality canned cat or dog food
- Other: plain cooked rice, unsalted nuts broken into small pieces for older kits approaching release age
Raccoons are true omnivores, so variety matters. A diet that’s too narrow during the weaning period can leave a kit nutritionally deficient and poorly prepared for life in the wild, where it’ll need to eat everything from crayfish to persimmons. Introduce new foods one or two at a time so you can spot any that cause digestive trouble.
Foods to Avoid
Some items that seem harmless are genuinely dangerous for raccoon kits. Cow’s milk and dairy products in general cause diarrhea in raccoons of all ages, since they lack the enzymes to digest lactose efficiently once weaned. Chocolate, onions, garlic, and avocado are toxic. Raw meat carries bacterial risk for young kits whose immune systems are still developing, so cook any animal protein before offering it. Processed human foods like chips, bread, and candy are nutritionally empty and can cause metabolic problems over time.
Grapes deserve special mention because they’re fine for raccoons in small quantities, unlike for dogs, where grapes can cause kidney failure. This is a common point of confusion for people used to dog-feeding rules. Raccoons are not dogs, and their tolerances differ considerably.
Avoid feeding kits anything they’d associate specifically with humans, especially if the goal is release. A raccoon that associates people with food becomes a nuisance animal that raids garbage, approaches strangers, and often ends up euthanized. Rehabilitators go to great lengths to present food in ways that don’t create a connection between eating and human contact.
Hydration
For kits still on formula, the formula itself provides most of their hydration. But dehydration is common in orphaned kits found after being alone for hours or days. Signs include dry gums, skin that stays tented when pinched, sunken eyes, and lethargy. A dehydrated kit should not be fed formula right away. Its gut can’t process milk properly in a dehydrated state, and the result is often diarrhea that makes the dehydration worse.
Instead, offer an unflavored electrolyte solution like Pedialyte, warmed to body temperature, in small amounts over the first several hours. Once the kit is urinating normally and its skin elasticity has improved, you can slowly transition to diluted formula and then full-strength formula over the next day or two. Rushing straight to full-strength formula in a dehydrated kit is a common mistake that causes a dangerous spiral of vomiting and fluid loss.
Once kits are eating solid food, a shallow dish of fresh water should be available at all times. Raccoons love water. They’ll play in it, dunk their food in it, and tip over the dish constantly. Use a heavy ceramic dish or clip a small bowl to the side of the enclosure.
Common Mistakes That Cause Real Harm
Wildlife rehabilitators see the same errors repeatedly in kits that arrive after days or weeks of well-meaning but incorrect home care. A few of the most consequential ones:
- Overfeeding: A hungry kit will eat far more than it should if allowed to, then develop painful bloating and diarrhea. Weighing the kit and calculating portions prevents this.
- Feeding on a human schedule: Kits need nighttime feedings during their first few weeks. Skipping overnight meals to match your sleep schedule leaves them hypoglycemic and can be fatal in very young animals.
- Using a microwave: Microwaved formula develops hot spots that can scald a kit’s mouth and throat. Warm formula by placing the bottle in a cup of hot water.
- Introducing solids too early: A four-week-old kit isn’t ready for solid food no matter how eager it seems. Its digestive system hasn’t matured enough, and early solids can cause intestinal blockages.
- Keeping it too long: Raccoons that stay in human care past about sixteen to twenty weeks become increasingly difficult to release successfully. The goal should always be to get the kit to a rehabilitator who can socialize it with other raccoons and prepare it for the wild.
Metabolic Bone Disease in Captive Kits
One of the less obvious but serious risks for raccoon kits raised on an inadequate diet is metabolic bone disease, caused by insufficient calcium, excess phosphorus, or lack of vitamin D. The result is bones that are soft, fragile, and prone to fractures. Kits with metabolic bone disease may have bowed legs, difficulty walking, or swollen joints. It develops gradually over weeks, so by the time it’s visible, significant damage has already occurred.
Formula-fed kits generally get adequate calcium from properly mixed milk replacer. The risk increases during and after weaning, especially if the diet consists mostly of fruit or muscle meat, both of which are high in phosphorus relative to calcium. Rehabilitators address this by adding a calcium supplement (calcium carbonate or calcium glubionate) to the diet during the weaning stage and ensuring variety in protein sources. Whole prey items like insects, which raccoons eat readily, provide a much better calcium-to-phosphorus ratio than boneless chicken or egg.
This is one of many reasons that even a well-intentioned home feeding program often falls short compared to professional rehabilitation. Getting the nutritional balance right for a growing raccoon across several dietary transitions is harder than it looks, and the consequences of getting it wrong don’t show up for weeks.
Raccoon Roundworm and Safe Handling
Raccoons are the primary host of Baylisascaris procyonis, a roundworm that’s harmless to raccoons but can cause severe neurological disease in humans. The eggs are shed in raccoon feces and become infectious after about two to four weeks in the environment. While very young kits fed only formula don’t typically carry an active roundworm burden, older kits that have been eating solid food in the wild almost certainly do.
Anyone handling a raccoon kit or cleaning its enclosure should wear gloves and wash hands thoroughly with soap and hot water afterward. Feces should be disposed of promptly, since the eggs become dangerous after sitting at room temperature. Surfaces that have been contaminated can be cleaned, but the eggs are remarkably resistant to disinfectants; heat (boiling water or steam) is more effective. This parasite risk is yet another reason that raccoon care belongs in the hands of professionals who understand the safety protocols and can administer appropriate deworming medications at the right time.