I’m starting to see a different kind of burrow hole this year. I used to have gophers, but I trapped vigorously and seem to be rid of them now. I’ve had major vole hordes move through. These new holes look like giant vole holes or miniature gopher holes but there are neither vole-type trails near them, nor gopher-type trailings/dirt piles around them. I have to figure out a way to trap whatever it is. I have a deer fence and a vole ‘fence’ around almost everything I’ve planted but mid-size critters can get through or over these guards.
I trapped another possum this morning in an unbaited trap.
That makes the second one. Maybe they figure the trap is
a safe place to sleep. NOT
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I caught a small racoon in the tube trap but the larger ones (caught on camera) just reach their paw in and scoop out the peanut butter. I need a bigger tube trap for coons.
Sigh. It seems to me that a two prong approach must be taken: 1. reduce population, 2. build fort knox. If you allow them to be fed on your produce, you in effect increase their population and show them where the good eats are. Building fort knox is expensive.
You’re using the wrong kind of trap. I posted a link to the one that I
use and it’s fool proof.
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Thanks Ray, I have a trap like that, but I don’t want to catch them only to have to haul them somewhere and drown them. That’s too much for me personally, I just want to bag them and be done. That’s hard enough.
You don’t have to haul them anywhere. I kill mine in the trap and place
them in the dumpster. If you bag yours, what do you do with them?
Remind me to stay upwind of your dumpster!
Amen to that brother…!! I try to time my trapping so that it’s no more than two days “ripening” time in the dumpster.
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Oh yuck. Guys. . . .
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It’s impossible to time trapping. My traps are 24/7 12 months
per year.
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Like with a gun or something?[quote=“rayrose, post:86, topic:6445”]
If you bag yours, what do you do with them
[/quote]
I put them in the trash which is collected once a week. BTW folks, bagging them, like in a grocery bag and tying it tight eliminates the smell. This has never been a problem with the squirrels I’ve caught.[quote=“rayrose, post:90, topic:6445”]
My traps are 24/7 12 monthsper year.
[/quote]
I am moving to that point of necessity now. Wasn’t that big of a problem until I started growing fruit.
I’ve had to disinfect the trash bin after a bagged mouse, can’t imagine a 30# raccoon carcass in the summer heat
I kill them in the trap by either shooting or drowning. Yours must be
killed by the trap, my traps are live traps. I also get lots of birds in my
traps, and the trap allows me to release them.
Must be the year of the possum. I’ve caught 3 and scared one off the last 5 or 6 nights.
They, and some coons, get trapped under the muscadine trellis. Grapes are nowhere close to ripe.
Now what? Just curious. I notice it is in your truck.
There is a nice creek bottom close by and way far away from houses.
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I’ll see your oppossum and raise you a skunk. A skunk got itself trapped in my squirrellinator trap going after a ground squirrel that was trapped inside. So of course, how do you get a skunk out of a trap w/o getting sprayed. Answer: You don’t.
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I forgo the trashcan. I can fill up a residential sized trashcan 1/2 full in a week with rabbit and squirrel carcass. Yes, by trash day the can is alive again — a squigly mass of maggots. If I just spread the little dead guys around the property, they’re gone by nightfall. I call it the ‘vulture feeder’.
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This is why I miss the crows
Yes, you do if you walk to a trap quietly and slowly with cheap platic table cloth in front of you. So, a skunk does not know you are approaching it.
When you get to the trap. Drop the cloth on the trap gently.Use a long stick to open one end of the trap. A skunk will get out. Usually during the day, a skunk gets a bit disoriented.
Did it twice. No issue. Mine is Havaheart trap.
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