Who left a rubber band?

[KFox]

I have a trap set that I bought at TSC. I've seen a lot of feral cats lately, so I've been setting it every night. I put some cat food in the bottom. Usually, I go out and it's still set and the food is still there.

This morning, the door was shut. The cat food was gone. Nothing was in the trap...except for a large red rubber band.

 

[mangled]

You've really got to watch those rubber bands. Especially the red ones. Be careful disposing of it, they're killers.



Em

 

[theoldchick]

My guess is another human intervened. Maybe a family member or a neighbor. Maybe those feral cats are somebody's pet?

 

[bethinoklahoma]

thats still weird.... Was the trap in your yard?

 

[KFox]

This is weird! The trap has been raided again but no rubber band this time.

We have a little over an acre. It is a long and narrow lot. At the back of it, I have a section that is about 120 ft x 300 ft for my little goats. It's fenced in.

Every type of food I've put in the trap has been eaten. Sometimes the door is closed and sometimes it isn't but I haven't caught anything actually IN the trap except for the rubber band.

I think I'm going to check into the pricing on a camera that will take pictures or video of what is going on. I am not taking my goats or chickens back there (without supervision) until I figure it out.

 

[CupOJoe42]

Sprinkle flour on the ground after you set the trap so that you can see if there are tracks. I'm guessing the 2 footed kind.

 

[KFox]

Flour is a great idea!

 

[CupOJoe42]

When my DH was bit by a copperhead while sleeping years ago (he was around 10) and they didn't know what it was, they put out a fish tank of gerbils and dusted the floor with flour all around it - you could see the slither marks so they knew it was a snake. They found the copperhead dried up inside the wall about 20+ years later! It had been hibernating in the logs that they were using as firewood.

 

[aprophet]

Quote:
http://www.fws.gov/birds/mortality-fact-sheet.pdf

"A study done in just WI domestic rural cats kill 39 million annually add the deaths caused by feral cats or domestic cats in rural or suburban areas and the mortality figure IS much Higher"

 

[annep]

Could it be a mouse?