Looking for ideas for home-made live animal trap.

[cupman]

Looking for some pictures or ideas of home made live animal traps. Youtube has some good ones but I thought I'd check in with the experts and see what you guys have to say. Raccoons found my coop and got one of my roosters, it was nasty, he grabbed ahold of him and drug him through the wire.. just woke up to a pile of feathers and blood, it was awful. The next night he returned to get another chicken but I was waiting with a gun and well he's not an issue anymore. But I can't stand guard every night so I was thinking of making a couple traps.

So far I was leaning towards an idea like this guys:

 

[dainerra]

my first thought is that a raccoon could reach though the wire easily? though I assume this is a shoot and dump trap, not a "relocate" trap?
here, you can get a live trap for a coon for $25 or less in the paper. I think a new one is $45. Raccoons are pretty strong too, if the fencing is even a little loose they might be able to escape.

 

[cupman]

Quote:
They are unreasonably expensive here.. the raccoons we have are pretty big, I'd say the smallest one I've seen around here would be 15lbs. There's one trap that *might* work but it's 65 dollars, and then the next one up from that is 120 dollars. Maybe I'm shopping in the wrong place, because I wouldn't mind paying 25 or 45 dollars.. but 120? that's enough to make me want to build my own. Maybe I'll check craigslist out.

 

[Sunny Side Up]

There's a BYCer with a brilliantly designed trap, it uses gravity & springs & self-locking hardware, but I can't find the person or the thread. I think they're making them to sell now, maybe, or at least selling the plans, I don't remember. The design is brilliant.

 

[navychick]

A few years ago we had a racoon in our garage. My husband contacted animal control and they loaned us 2 live traps. We baited both with a small can of cat food and the next morning took 2 racoons out and released them into the woods where AC suggested.

 

[dainerra]

Quote:
They are unreasonably expensive here.. the raccoons we have are pretty big, I'd say the smallest one I've seen around here would be 15lbs. There's one trap that *might* work but it's 65 dollars, and then the next one up from that is 120 dollars. Maybe I'm shopping in the wrong place, because I wouldn't mind paying 25 or 45 dollars.. but 120? that's enough to make me want to build my own. Maybe I'll check craigslist out.

for those prices, I'd just buy one from amazon.com... they are only $50 there. Probably ebay as well and most things you can find somewhere with free shipping...

http://www.amazon.com/Havahart-1079-12-Inch-Professional-Style-One-Door/dp/B00004RAMT yeah, $50, no tax + free shipping....

ETA:

ebay, http://cgi.ebay.com/Raccoon-Squirre...357?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item20ba206ba5 2 traps (skunk and raccoon) for $40 and free shipping...