CAUGHT MY CHICKEN KILLER! *graphic*

[sealer39]

A few nights ago I saw a raccoon sniffing around my coop. I don’t have time to stay up all night hunting raccoons, so I bought one of these:

I’ve hunted and caught just about every critter and fish there is in the Southeastern US but I’ve never had a reason to use a trap before. So I had a bit of a learning curve to deal with. I baited the trap with a can of Fancy Feast chicken breast with gravy (everyone in the Southeast likes gravy, so why not). I put the trap against my run close to where I saw the raccoon enter from the wood line to approach the coop. I also threw some left over fermented feed in the trap. Three nights and nothing.
Yesterday morning I checked the trap at daylight, 6:30am. Still nothing. At 8:00am, when I left to take my daughters to school, my youngest got in the car then yelled, “YOU CAUGHT A RACCOON!”.
I got my girls to school and came back home to dispatch the raccoon.

Did so, then inspected the trap. I found the the raccoon was able to pull the can of cat food out of the trap without tripping it. What got her was the fermented feed. She went back in and was eating it when she sprung the trap.
Good news: I caught the potential chicken killer.
Bad news: we saw two more big juvenile raccoons in the woods that didn’t get caught.
Now I have two raccoons that are probably trap wary.
Lessons learned: 1-dump the cat food from the can into the trap so the raccoon can’t pick it up and carry it out. 2-I’ll camouflage the trap with pine straw and leaves in hopes that the other raccoons will not recognize it in the future. 3-I’ll now move the trap to a different location.
4-I’ll also set up one of my game cams to monitor the activities of the predators so I’ll know if they are bypassing the trap now.

I see so many posts on here asking how to handle predators and it seems the first answers (including mine) are to install a camera. Well, that’s good but a camera won’t kill the predator. A trap and a .22 will! Install a trap of some kind first then install a camera to help determine how or where to place the trap.

Typically, game cams are set up by hunters to determine WHEN deer are moving and also to see the quality of the bucks in the area. In the past I have been able to determine to the minute when deer are going to pass on a trail or approach a food plot by using game cams.

So now if these other two raccoons won’t enter the trap, hopefully the camera will tell me their schedule which will allow me to hunt them successfully.

These are just my observations and opinions. I hope this long thread helps someone save the life of a chicken.

 

[mowin]

Coons are smart, but one of the easiest critters to trap. A easy meal is their downfall. Especially if young. Client Had a family of em in his barn. Mom was huge and the youths were getting close to being booted out.
Caught 3 in 5 nights. Mom got caught on the 7th night.

 

[starri33]

I'll probably get reamed, but that is ok, I am glad to hear that you dispatched the coon, catch and release is just passing on your problem to someone else, they are not fish.. everyone has given you great ideas for bait. I've been extremely blessed that I've not had a issue so far with predators, I've lost one chick, but I don't know that it was a hawk vs my other chickens picking on a new addition and ending up eating one of their own.

 

[roosterhavoc]

I don’t have a “goal” for saying this, and I really don’t care if you don’t care what I say. I believe that setting a trap that grabs the foot of an animal, putting it in severe pain, is not something that we should be doing to animals. I’m not an “anti trapper”. I’m not a “save the earth PETA person”. I just think that it’s wrong. I have had a raccoon attack my chickens before it was a bloody mess with “parts” everywhere. As you can imagine is was very sad and upsetting. So then we set out a foot trap. But guess what happened? One of our remaining chickens wandered into it and was cut in two. Yep. Let that sink in. So then we were more careful and set a leg trap farther away from the coop. That night, some animal got stuck in it and broke the chain and ran away with the thing still on it’s leg. It was probably eaten alive by some other animal (we live in the woods). I now use box traps and then shoot them (not the catch and release type at all) and yes, it’s completely legal where we live. You can argue all you want about this, but I won’t be replying.

That’s why most states and provinces have a hunter/trapper education course. If you took the time to learn how to properly use them and used common sense those issues wouldn’t have happened.
Even a rat trap could seriously injure a chicken?! I can’t believe anyone would set a trap like that where a chicken could get into them!
Broke the chain??? Uh huh. I’ve never seen that happen yet. More like the trap wasn’t anchored properly. It sounds to me like your blaming a tool because the user didn’t know how to use it. Pretty typical. Take the time to learn how to properly set them, adjust the pan tension, anchoring etc and you wouldn’t have had those problems. Most foothold traps need a lot of adjustment before they’re ready to set.
I don’t care if you reply or not the fact remains you had no idea what you were doing. Still haven’t learned and are blaming a tool for your lack of planning. Typical.

 

[muddy75]

have had an issue with raccoons here as well....if having an issue with live trap, and still no time for “hunting” you may consider dog-proof toe trap. we set both types in addition to electrifying top of fence perimeter. took about a week but caught first “criminal” in toe trap baited with vienna wiener yesterday.....

 

[123RedBeard]

A "dog-proof" trap ... while it does hold its "toes" ... it is totally different than what most people think of a miniature bear trap ... it is a pipe, that the raccoon has to put it "hand" in ... it won't catch a dog ... very slight chance of a skunk ...

When using a cage trap like pictured above ... while wiring the bait in place is a good idea, it is also a good idea to hook the trap down to the ground ... a piece of re-bar bent into a "L" and placed between the wiring from top to bottom, then hammered into the ground will work, some people use a cement block, or log on top to hold it down ... if a big raccoon gets in there and starts thrashing around ... and tips it over, the door can get unlatched, and coon goes free ... or one of its buddies from outside, tis it over, same results ... a trap smart coon!

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I had a raccoon kill my two hens. Used the live trap and took him 10 miles out of town and released
Him . Haven’t caught any since
Any thoughts on raccoon proofing my coop as new chicks soon to be outside

Wrong approach for so many reasons.
Relocating wildlife is often illegal.
Raccoons have huge ranges so even at 10 miles away, it may be right back.
If it was far enough that it doesn't know where it is and how to get back, it has to compete with native wildlife while it doesn't know where to find food and water. If it can survive, it will have to fight for survival injuring or killing others or itself.
Taking raccoons from a suburban area to a more rural area, can introduce disease to that population.
Last but not least, you are transplanting your problem to someone else's backyard.
You have also trained the raccoon to avoid box traps in the future. A raccoon only needs to escape a trap once and will never be trapped again.

 

[roosterhavoc]

They’re all called foothold traps. The DPs are foot encapsulating.
When properly set with the correct size trap and pan tension they are perfectly humane. More BS from people just repeating what they hear.

 

[sealer39]

View attachment 1894805View attachment 1894805
Leg hold trap
View attachment 1894809
Toe hold trap
I think both of them are inhumane

Your right. The next time I catch a raccoon or possum trying to kill my chickens, I’ll dispatch it the way it dispatches chickens. I’ll rip it limb from limb then bite it’s head off while it’s still alive. That would be the “natural” way to do it.

 

[roosterhavoc]

It was actually my grandfather who set the trap. He has taught some of those courses you mentioned and then worked at a store that sold traps and guns and things and was a games keeper in England for five years. I think he was highly qualified. And it wasn’t were a chicken could get too it. Our chickens are in the front yard and we put it in the woods in the back yard were we don’t allow the chickens to go.

I don’t know what to tell you? Apparently your grandfather wasn’t as qualified as he thought huh. There’s a big difference in saying you know what you’re doing and actually knowing.
Regardless the issues you had were a result of mistakes by the person setting the trap not the trap itself. You can state your opinion all you want about whether or not your feel the trap is humane/inhumane. I know the difference and in every case it’s the person setting the traps responsibility to do it right. Problems arise when people don’t use good judgement.