Too smart to be trapped? ---- Finally caught something!!!

[FLchook]

After finding the remains of Fluffy Butt all over the paster, I was finally mad enough to get a trap. I have too big of a heart and cant even bring myself to kill the mice in my barn...but thats another story.

Anyway, the trap has been set and baited for 3 nights now, and the only thing I have managed to catch is my own dog

The first night the food was all eaten, but cage empty and still standing tall. 2nd night food wasnt even touched. And last night, some of the food was eaten, but trap still not sprung. I know the trap works because Biscuit was nice enough to test it out for me.

(First time I helped him in there, 2nd time he wandered around the barn and got himself trapped)

No one else has been eaten, but I know its still out there. Ive lots too many of my feathered friends in the recent past, and I will not loose anymore.

But how do I trap the thing if I cant get it? Is it too light? too smart? or what?

Thanks,
Shannon

 

[patandchickens]

They can be smart, especially if it is a raccoon that's seen its colleagues get trapped.

You can file down the end of the trigger bar (at least on the kind of livetrap i have) so that it takes less pressure to set it off.

You can also WIRE the bait down -- use a drumstick with most of the meat removed or something like that, and wire it firmly to the floor of the trap -- to get the animal to wrassle with it and hopefully carelessly step hard on the trigger plate.

It is also possible that what's eating the bait isn't what you think is eating the bait. Any way to spread sand, or flour, or <whatever> all around the trap to get some footprints to ID the critter?

Good luck,

Pat, with one(?) trap-shy raccoon STILL in the barn loft, grrrr, but the filing-down and wiring-of-bait did get two of its compadres at least.

 

[Tony]

Use a rag,wash cloth or sock soaked with vanilla extract (for baking) as bait. the racoons LOVE it.
Good Luck Tony

 

[silkiechicken]

What are you trying to trap? You'll have to put it along paths or along fences or walls. 90% of trapping is trap placement. With trap placement, I've caught many a pest without bait.

 

[laughingllama75]

I thought a mink/weasel was getting into my henhouse, and I was setting those kind of traps.......it turns out they were rats. I kept finding the bait gone (who knew rats loved tuna and canned cat food?) and more and more chicks missing. They wiped out my pigeons....... finally, figured out it was the rats. They were too smart for poison, all it took was 1 rat to get shot with birdshot and they wouldnt come out for us to see anymore. too smart for traps, so, I got an electronic rat zapper and a barn cat......I am not rat free. HOORAY! so, have you seen anything out there? my chickens were missing thier innards, heads and the chicks were missing completly. So were the pigeons. Good luck, it may take a while to narrow the predator down.........

 

[willheveland]

You'd have to figure out what your trying to trap to get the best bait.Weasels like bloody meat,coon like marshmellows with jelly or sardines,but oppossums will come into sardines too.Figure out what you got to deal with and you may get some better ideas. Will

 

[Poison Ivy]

I set mine along the wall with concrete blocks on the open side because they were rolling my cage to get the food. Now I dig a small hole under the cage and set a can of cat food in it. I then set the cage on top of it. Works great

 

[FLchook]

and it wasnt Biscuit this time!

It was an opposum! I was sure it was a coon, but of course that doesnt mean there isnt something else. Ill be setting the trap again tonight.

Think what finally got him was because the can of tuna was half gone. It had to work to get the food out, rather than the easy eats from a full and juciy can. It sits along a wall in a place that isnt too open.

Shannon

 

[Gindee77]

If your dog has been in the trap, it may smell like a dog. (No offense to your pup...LOL) and the coons may not go near it if that's the case. Maybe that vanilla would cover up the scent of doggie.

We just got a new live trap today and set it. We finished our new coop but it's too cold out there still at night, to put our chicks in it. But we heard a huge thump on our deck a couple nights ago and my DH went out and saw a huge coon! We set the trap tonight and are going to try to catch and relocate him (and any of his relatives) that keep coming to get into our garbage cans and recycle bin BEFORE we put our babies out in the coop. We made the coop out of chicken wire but decided after reading about all the problems with rats, mice and weasels that we're going to get a roll of 1/2" grid welded wire to cover over the entire coop. We've got too much invested to skimp now!! LOL

Good luck!

 

[FLchook]

The food was getting eaten every night, so it was going in, it was just either too smart or lucky not to set it LOL.

GL with your trapping and relocating!