Adult Kinkajou

The following is adapted from Dr. Wright's presentation for the 2009 North American Veterinary Conference in Orlando, FL.

Procyonids are a New World family of Carnivora that include three common exotic pets—raccoons, kinkajous, and coatis. The family includes the ringtail, erroneously called a ringtail cat and not to be confused with the ringtail lemur, that is occasionally seen as a pet in the US, and its relative, the cacomistle. Olingos (similar in appearance to kinkajous but lacking a prehensile tail) round out the group but are almost never seen as pets outside of their native countries.

BRIEF HUSBANDRY

Procyonids are omnivorous although olingos and kinkajous are considered frugivorous and opportunistic omnivores. They consume both plant and animal material, including small mammals and birds. Some species are social, living in family groups or bands containing a number of families, while others are solitary.

All species are to some degree arboreal, often seeking refuge in the trees when pursued by predators. Most are nocturnal, often denning in hollow trees during the day. Space precludes a detailed discussion of the variations between the species. For more details, see the websites listed in references.

Captive procyonids should be maintained in the largest enclosure possible, typically about the size of a small room (8 ft x 8 ft x 6 ft). Ideally, they should have exercise time outside of this small a cage. Some people give them roam of an animal-proofed house. I recommend having a hide box that has a lockable door so that you are able to secure the animals whenever you have to make major changes in their cage. I have a kinkajou that goes crazy when she hears the snip of wire cutters and another than gets annoyed when branches or lumber 2x4s are brought into the room. Ideally, the hide box is detachable and can be used as a transport container, too.

Secure water bottles or Lix-it fixtures should be used for drinking water but you may have to protect it as procyonids’ long sharp canines have punctured many a thick plastic water bottle. Raccoons and coatis love to play in water bowls and some even like to swim if given the opportunity.

I like to use sturdy plastic crocks for their food or put it in hanging buckets or hidden in PCV pipes. The more time they spend looking for their food, or trying to get it out of a container, the less time they have to develop behavioral problems. Plastic soda bottles, paper towel cores, cardboard boxes, and other items can be used as places to hide food. Dog kibble or monkey biscuits are recommended as the base diet, typically 4 to 8 oz/day for smaller procyonids and 8 to 12 oz/day for larger species, with about 1 cup of produce (eg, sweet potato, cucumber, carrots, apple, peach, mango, banana ) and 1 oz of dried fruit (eg, dates, figs, prunes, apricots, papaya, mango) can be offered, too. Kinkajous love hibiscus flowers and leaves. High sugar content foods such as honey should be avoided as it creates extremely unpredictable behavior—think of a 5-year old sleep deprived child hopped up on Red Bull and ice cream and armed with fangs and knives! I do not recommend feeding raw meat, or whole chicks, mice, or rats to pet procyonids due to the risk of parasites and salmonellosis.

Kinkajous feed mainly on fruits and flowers in the wild.  They help pollinate many tropical plants.

Procyonids may or may not learn to use a litter box. Ringtails usually do, coatis often learn, raccoons may learn, and kinkajous rarely learn. If you have a procyonid and you keep it indoors, you cannot expect a clean and orderly house.

It is extremely important to provide lots of opportunities for exploration to prevent boredom and stereotypic behavior. Bringing in a tub of mulch to dig in, a tub of water to splash in, and rotating toys and items to explore are essential tasks for the procyonid owner. It is also important to provide daily contact time and training time so that the pet and owner are on the same page with their expectations for social interactions.

NOCTURNAL BEHAVIOR AND AGGRESSION OR UNPREDICTABILITY

Procyonids are typically nocturnal although they may have periods of activity during the day. In a pet situation, I recommend maintaining them on a reverse light cycle for owners that work day jobs. This makes the pet’s activity period coincide with the owner’s activity period.  I believe that many of the behavior problems stem from owners rousing procyonids out of sound sleeps and then insisting on playful interaction. Grumpy procyonids are more likely to bite and become aggressive. Coordinating the owner’s and pet’s schedules eliminates this factor.  Of course, this is nigh impossible to do with outdoor cages but can readily be achieved by keeping them indoors with the lights on a timer.

Aggression is also related to sexual behavior (see below) as well as unpredictability of their human companions. If you come to your raccoon stinking of a strange dog you played with, don’t be surprised if it gets nervous and anxious and gives you a swat or a nip. Negative reinforcement such as hitting or yelling NEVER works with procyonids and can undo a long-term trusting relationship. You have to face the fact that you WILL end up bitten at some point unless you are always on high alert while projecting a calm and confident manner every time you interact with a procyonid.

COMMONLY REQUESTED SURGICAL PROCEDURES

The procyonids are plantigrade with short curved claws that are partially retractable in the ringtail and cacomistle. The claws are extremely sturdy in kinkajous, olingos, and coatis. I believe it is cruel to disfigure any procyonid by declawing; all species show remarkable dexterity that would be crippled with such a procedure.

The dental formula for procyonids is 3/3, 1/1, 3-4/3-4, 2/2-3, with a total of 36 to 42 teeth depending on species. Dental problems ranging from tartar, tartar and gingivitis, to calculus and periodontal disease, are common in procyonids and are most likely due to inappropriate and unbalanced diets. Cleaning and polishing are recommended annually at a minimum with appropriate restorative treatments as needed.

This elderly kinkajou's teeth have staining and tartar. The molars are worn almost to the gumline.

Kinkajous are a particularly long-lived mammal with specimens regularly reaching into the late 20s and many hitting their third, fourth, and even fifth decade. As a result they face a peculiar problem wherein their teeth may actually wear down to the gum line if they routinely eat too hard a kibble.

“Defanging” or canine removal is a commonly requested procedure, particularly once a procyonid reaches adulthood and inflicts its first major bite on its owner. Total removals of the canines are difficult and fraught with complications due to the lengths of the canine roots. An endodontic procedure that retains the root below the gum line is the recommended alternative.  For kinkajous (and likely olingos), removal of the canines interferes with their ability to eat certain fruit, such as grapes, and normal grooming of themselves and their cage mates. The application of this procedure certainly is an ethical divide among exotic pet veterinarians.

Neutering and spaying are often recommended to enhance the pet quality of procyonids. I believe this must be done before 4 months of age in order to have the most profound effect. However, gonadectomized procyonids may show sexual behavior; perhaps there are sex hormones produced by the adrenal gland as in the domestic ferret. My experience with kinkajous does show that a female in estrus becomes unpredictable, often focusing on the primary caregiver as a mate and becoming aggressive to any other humans. An intact male becomes frantic during a female’s estrus and may relentlessly pace the cage until she goes out of estrus. I do not believe that gonadectomy is the magic bullet for behavior problems but I do believe it makes their behavior more predictable.

On a related note, it is illuminating that two different spayed female dogs developed separation anxiety (separated temporally so it was not a learned behavior between the two) whenever a female kinkajou had a swollen vulva indicative of estrus. Procyonids split from the Canidae group in the Eocene, over 30 million years ago, yet still produce pheromones that can change the behavior of a domestic dog! I wonder how many of the behavior issues in captive procyonids are due to “pheromone storms” raised by intact feral cats and dogs or native procyonids roaming zoo grounds or owner’s backyards. The pheromone miasma in a zoo likely includes all the captive felids, canids, ursids, viverrids, mustelids, and mephitids (and possibly even walruses, sea lions, and seals) and certainly needs to be considered whenever a species has behavioral issues
and poor reproduction in captivity!

VACCINATIONS

Procyonids are susceptible to many carnivore viruses such as canine distemper (raccoon, coati, kinkajou), feline parvovirus (coati), rabies (all), and mink enteritis (raccoons). Raccoons have their own parvovirus which is most closely related to feline parvovirus (ie, feline panleukopenia). Raccoons do not develop disease when exposed to canine parvovirus but they can develop disease when experimentally infected with feline parvovirus. The disease is very similar to canine parvovirus causing severe diarrhea and death if untreated. It is unknown how contagious raccoon parvovirus is to other procyonids.

Modified live vaccines carry a risk while killed vaccines are typically unavailable. Purevax Ferret Vaccine (Merial) is most suitable for canine distemper vaccinations and is recommended for all species. Some have used Duramune Max-5 (Fort Dodge) or Recombitek C4 (Merial) instead. Fel-O-Vax (Fort Dodge) or Felocell CVR (SmithKline Beecham) have been used for feline distemper vaccinations. Imrab-3 (Merial) is used commonly, as is Rabvac-3 (Fort Dodge) for rabies immunization in all species. A mink enteritis vaccine, Biovac (United Vaccines), is available and has been used in raccoons. Vaccinations have some generally accepted guidelines but overall the sample size is small for all procyonids and a discussion should be had with the owner about the risks before giving any vaccines other than Purevax and Imrab-3 or Rabvac-3.

Empirically, a dose at 0 and 14 days, repeated at 6 months and then annually, has been used successfully.  Others have tried to space vaccines out; for example, administering the vaccine for canine distemper one week and feline panleukopenia and mink enteritis the next and then repeating for a total of two or three doses for each vaccine. Rabies vaccination is given once to an animal at least 16 weeks old, boosted at 6 months, and repeated annually. In young procyonids, the vaccines are started at 6 to 9 weeks of age and repeated every 3 weeks until they are 16 weeks of age. Due to the lack of controlled clinical trials, there is NO GUARANTEE that any vaccine regimen will be effective in procyonids but it is the best protection we have available.

PARASITES

The raccoon roundworm, Baylisascaris procyonis, is a zoonotic disease that is a known cause of cerebral nematodiasis and ocular and visceral larval migrans in domestic and non-domestic animals, and humans. It has been found in raccoons as young as 3 weeks of age. Transmission commonly occurs through the ingestion of infective eggs, which results in aberrant migration in hosts other than raccoons. It takes about 2 to 4 weeks for the shed ova to become infective so prompt removal of raccoon feces and proper disposal is a must. The ova can last for years in the environment and are resistant to most disinfectants. Each ovum is coated with a sticky surface that makes it adhere to food and water bowls and clothing, but this coating breaks down with chlorine bleach so the ova can then be washed away. Raccoons should be rigorously dosed with pyrantel palmoate every 2 weeks for at least 6 weeks when first acquired and regular fecal surveillance established with anthelmintics as needed. Some people choose to have their raccoons on anthelmintics every 3 to 4 months since it is impossible to complete clear the infection. There is the possibility of transplacental transfer so there is no way to guarantee that a hand-raised baby raccoon is free of the parasite. It is important to wash your hands after touching a raccoon or its enclosure. Raccoons are not recommended for households with children or babies since the consequences of larval migrans are so much more devastating for them.

Freshly imported kinkajous often suffer from intestinal nematodes and need to be treated with either pyrantel palmoate or fenbendazole. They usually take medications quite well if hidden in strawberry jam or fruit jelly.

RANDOM NOTES

Coatis have scent glands on the inside of the prepuce that may become enlarged and infected; circumcision may be needed to correct this condition. It is possible that leuprolide acetate (Lupron) or deslorelin treatments or castration may prevent this condition.

IS A KINKAJOU OR OTHER PROCYONID THE RIGHT PET FOR ME?

1) Can YOU dedicate 2 or more hours a day to caring for this pet? If not, what are you going to do when the pet starts biting?

2) What are you going to do with a pet that lives up to 40 years, particularly if it outlives you?

3) What are you going to do with a pet that destroys your clothes and, if loose in your house, will break anything possible?

I cannot stress enough that procyonids are intelligent, long-lived, and demanding pets. All too often, they end up neglected and abandoned once they have outgrown the cute stage at around 1 to 2 years of age.

Baby kinkajous are often sold for pets before they are weaned.  As they get older, they become very intelligent pets that are a challenge for many pet owners.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Kinkajou http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Potos_flavus.html

Coati http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Nasua_nasua.html

Ringtail http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Bassariscus_astutus.html

Northern Raccoon http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/site/accounts/information/Procyon_lotor.html
Note that the northern raccoon, which is the species typically kept as a pet in the US, is also known as the Guadelupe raccoon.)

AZA Small Carnivore Taxon Advisory Group - Standardized Animal Care Guidelines for Procyonids (2005), available as a pdf via Association of Zoos and Aquariums

Denver M. 2003. Procyonidae and Viverridae, in Fowler ME, Miller RE (eds): Zoo and Wild Animal Medicine, 5th Edition, pp 516-523 (includes hematology, chemistries, reproductive parameters, minimum enclosure dimensions).

copyright 2009
Kevin Wright DVM
Arizona Exotic Animal Hospital
744 N Center Street
Mesa, AZ 85201
(480) 275 7017
info@azeah.com