At Black Goose we use care and precision when we are removing animals from your chimney.  The most common intruders in chimneys are Raccoons, Squirrels and Birds.  When removing animals, you should always wear a full-face respirator and heavy leather gloves.

RACCOONS

Raccoons like to have their babies on the smoke shelf in masonry fireplaces.  If your chimney is not capped off they can easily maneuver into the chimney to have their babies.  Raccoons carry rabies, roundworms, fleas and lice.  Mama raccoons are very dangerous and must be out of the area before we remove the babies. Mama Raccoon can open most any damper, except for rotary screw type Vestal dampers, and even then she can still move the damper.  Most raccoons can be forced out of the flue, by pushing them with a rod with a half moon tool attached to it.  Babies are often too young to climb out on their own and must be physically removed.  When our leads remove the babies they will wear heavy gloves so they do not leave their scent on the babies and they will place them in a bucket or box so that Mama Raccoon can come and get them.

 SQUIRRELS

Squirrels can often be removed by dropping a rope down the flue and securing it to the top of the chimney casing.  Sometimes it is necessary to physically remove them.

BIRDS

If you have a prefabricated fireplace it is possible for a bird to be stuck in between the pipes.  If the bird is in between the pipes the only way for us to remove the bird is to remove the siding of the exterior chimney in order to access the pipe, which will have to be unattached from the top down and then reconnected.

The only bird that we cannot remove from a flue is the chimney swift. They are a federally protected species. For more information on chimney swifts please visit www.chimneyswift.org.