Raccoons love suet and will take them off hooks, we used to find our upside down hanging suet feeder on the deck opened with greasy footprints around. Certainly sounds like a coon to me.

Donna

Over the years I have lost at least a dozen suet holders to the little masked bandits. The only sure way to keep suet (IMHO) is to bring in the suet at night & put it back out in am. I like to think somewhere on my property there are coon dens with green wire windows!
Susan

P.S. - I know your main question was whether raccoons would eat suet; but thought I would just mention that raccoons have excellent manual dexterity, and they're pretty smart, so figuring out how to push a hook up to get what they want (as with your dad's feeder) is something they could do.

This would be the time to put up a motion camera.
I had 2 frames of honey comb missing in the box when feeding
honey bees, then I set up a camera....

we were sitting in the kitchen for lunch on day last fall
whenone of the grandkids yelled that a cat was climbig the tree. I turned to see a racoon passing through and hungry, he climbed up the tree trunk and lifted the suet tray off a long screw in the tree and dropped the suet tray to the ground. climbed down and opened it and ate the suet and away he went to bother somebody else.

Oh what a cute kitty kitty konrad! ;)
I, too, have had coons steal my suet......metal cage and all.
I also had hung soap from pine trees to keep the deer away, and they all disappeared too. I was waiting to see a few coons blowing bubbles. haha

Konrad,
I think I prefer my racoons, thank you very much! Will he/she stay around due to the free sweets or move on? I detect their scent now & then but only see a skunk maybe once every few years.

Haha to the kitty, kitty catherine-love that commercial. It wouldn't suprise me if they did blow bubbles, either.

Years ago, before I knew better, I tried to outsmart the racoons by providing cheap dog food. My thinking was they would eat it & leave my bird food alone. One pair of racoons grew into 12 pair over one summer! I was buying 50 lbs of dog food every week! Obviously that backfired so I slowly started putting out less & less until after a few months I put out none.

Oops, I meant 12 'coons, not 12 pair.
Susan

I have raccoon baffles on all feeder stations. Used to use a squirrel baffle on one but changed that out after a raccoon carried off my suet feeder! Yep, my bet is a raccoon.

>>I think I prefer my racoons, thank you very much! Will he/she stay around due to the free sweets or move on? I detect their scent now & then but only see a skunk maybe once every few years. Susan,
I don't mind the skunk, did you see, the first picture he sprayed!
For some reason it didn't smell,..it was just a spray without substance..LOL,
really, this guy has never smelled, someone told me, he knows people who has a cat door
going to their house and they have wild skunks coming in and eat cat food,...never had them spray.

I would think the skunks are more at home in the bush.
I put the honey higher up on top of the hives,...usally never have problems when doing so.
Skunks don't climb like raccons,.. you can have them, thank you very much!
We have them in the city, a introduced pest, luckily I don't have them out in the country.

Konrad

Konrad,
Glad the skunks aren't too much of a bother. They sure are beautiful to look at. You are right about preferring them to racoons as I have a pesky 'coon coming in my pet door & eating the dog food. I wouldn't mind that so much but he/she washes in the water bowl & makes a big mess, leaving little muddy fingerprints everywhere. Darn their opposable thumbs!
Susan

A little skunk anecdote, which I will call "Summer of the Skunk."

Last June a skunk started to visit us regularly (there is a reservation not too far away). This began a summer of almost weekly encounters between our Wheaten Terrier, Nevie, and the striped intruder. Terriers are bred to get rid of small varmints, so the first time the skunk squeezed himself through our fence and into our yard, Nevie headed for the skunk. In no time flat she was back at the door howling, covered with skunk smell.

Clueless, we opened the door and brought her in (the number one rule of what NOT to do when your dog gets skunked). We knew right away, and at 11:00 p.m. my husband fled to Walgreens to get the ingredients for all-time-best skunk deoderizer, not to mention several cans of Febreze. Meanwhile the skunk smell had wafted through the entire house in no time, the kids were gagging and whining and when hubbie got home we plunked Neve into the bath. She was grateful. We stank.

This happened five times in all during the summer. We attributed the last four times to either stubbornness on Nevie's part in protecting her family, or maybe that she is not the brightest dog in the neighborhood. We tried every natural repellant we could think of, kept the dog in after dark, said prayers and lit candles. We were afraid that maybe the skunk didn't leave at night but hung out under our deck (but we didn't see him and were too afraid to go under there.)

The last time the skunk visited was in September, when we had a Danish exchange student staying with us. Her room windows were open when the skunk attacked. It was bad. No matter what we did the smell hung on. Our daughter, who brought our guest to high school with her each day, came home to say that all day teachers were asking if anyone else smelled skunk (?!) A wonderful memory for senior year. I'm sure our guest's report when she got back to Denmark included some mention of skunks.

Just when we were about to bring in professional help (for us and to remove the skunk) the skunk stopped visiting. I guess his work here was done.

Here's hoping we have no skunk visits this summer, but if we do, at least we've learned some lessons!:)

We get skunked every spring, when they rip up our sod to get to grubs, and even tear at on old scrag tree to look for more bugs. The sod looks like a professional sod cutter had been at it, and I just lay the flap of turf down like it were a divot and it roots again quickly. We get them here in the country and we don't smell them nearly so much since our own barn cat died. He wasn't overly bright, and I think he used to have run-ins with them. I came face to face (well actually face to butt) with one of them a couple summers ago when I was edging up a hill picking wild blackberries and was hunkered down close to the ground. I pulled the brambles apart and he was there with his tail up and aimed. OMGosh. For some reason I didn't panic......just let the brambles go back together and very sloooowly moved back and went to a different patch. Quite relieved.

Raccoons have tried to remove the suet cage on the big Oak tree that I put raw suet in, but it's firmly attached by a screw hook. You can also use screw-eyes and snap hooks, or some similar hardware and they won't be able to remove the cage itself.

They have also tried to get up to the feeders but I have squirrel/raccoon baffles on them and they really work. However, one of the poles was listing a bit one day last winter.

This guy was on the suet cage last week - not sure why he was out during the day though?

Raccoons loves to eat suet. They are too strong to climb on the tree for getting the suet and can easily steal the stuff in feeder. Terrene has given amazing idea here..i hope it works and makes Raccoons away from the feeder.

Here is a link that might be useful: National Maritime Museum