Every year I publish my annual varmint report of the critters that I have disposed of during the year either by trapping or shooting with my air rifle.
I keep 5 safeguard traps baited year round, mainly with sunflower seeds
and sometimes with fallen apples. I like to keep yearly comparisons mainly
just for fun. I also live in the city, and all cats were taken to the shelter.
I highly recommend Safeguard traps as they are indestructible, don’t rust,
and are escape proof. This year I shot all of the rabbits from about 20-30 yards, as this year’s crop shied away from the traps. Possums are the easiest to trap and I believe the dumbest of all critters, as 2 of them went into unbaited traps.
Wow, that is a lot of varmits, esp squirrels! Lots o rabbits and possums too. We live out in the boonies, and I don’t hardy ever see any critters, except deer, which seem to make up for the the lack of other varmits with the damage they inflict. Do you have deer issues, or does being in the city prevent that? I know @scottfsmith is in Baltimore, yet has deer pressure. So being in town doesn’t always keep them away.
But, our fruit trees arent producing yet, so I imagine our fortunes will change. Did your varmit pressure increase a lot when your plants started to fruit out?
Wow. Nice job Ray!!
I agree on the Safeguard traps. Some of the rodent traps have triggers way too hard for a female hand to set AND release. I’ve given mine away.
So I have some trapping questions.
Moles?
Bait that caught the fox?
Do you put the bait in a container in the trap or just sprinkle it around? I think of sunflower seeds getting lost in the grass.
Thanks.
I don’t know why, but I’ve never seen a mole. The fox, on which I posted a very
long story at the time, was a grey fox. Grey foxes are omnivorous and he went
after the apples. Most beautiful animal I’ve ever seen.
I just sprinkle the seeds in front of the trap and inside the trap. I use old license
plates to aid the springing of the trap door, since some animals can reach over
the spring mechanism. They have to stand on the license plate and that springs
the trap.
Cats kill my song birds, which are invaluable in controlling insects,
while cats are nothing but a nuisance. We have a leash law in my
county, which applies also to cats. If you break the law, and allow
your cat to roam free in my yard, he’s fair game, and you’ll have to go
to the shelter and pay the fine, before they either adopt out the animal
or euthanize it.
In my yard snakes have many places in which to hide, and I’m not taking
any chances of getting bitten, venomous or not. Besides, snakes eat the
many lizards in my yard that eat the insects that attack my fruit trees. I
prefer lizards over snakes, since they don’t bite.
Reminds me of a a friend who once told me, - if I see a poisonous snake, I kill it., If I see a non poisonous snake, I kill it. If I see a snake I’m not sure about, I kill it…lol
I might suggest to consider keeping the non poisonous snakes. Personally, I’ve picked up lots of non poisonous snakes and been bitten dozens of times, but it’s nothing more than a cat scratch.
Snakes do eat lizards, but they are so attracted to small warm blooded animals (the kind who cause me problems ) I don’t mind if the non poisonous ones scare me, or bite me.
That sounds weird, but over the years, I’ve discovered snakes are pretty cool, although some of them stink.
You are lucky that they let you bring the cats to the shelter. Up here they charge you $15.00 per cat if it’s yours or not. My poor mother had all the neighbourhood cats using her flower beds as a littler box all year long. Weeding was absolutely disgusting, but nada that we could do unless we were willing to pay.
I need to trap racoons and skunks but have not found a good bait, any suggestions?
Stinky snakes? Don’t think I’ve heard about that before. I’ve seen lots of them around the farm but haven’t killed any, because they’ve all been non poisonous, and we need them for rodent control.
A couple years ago, we had a nest of newly hatched nuisance birds hidden in the soffiting of our newly built shed. I couldn’t get to them, but could hear them for days. Well, one day I went into the shed and the chirping was gone. Apparently a snake had got up in the rafters and had himself some Birdie Mcnuggets. The reason I say a snake is because I had seen him up there on one of the cross beams a couple days before. Looked like a rat snake.
So, there was no evidence of bird or snake, but apparently Mr Serpent had decided to relieve himself from high above onto the new concrete floor and lawn mower below. OMG, what a nasty, greasy, disgusting mess that was! I almost gagged having to watch my wife clean it up…
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No actually, I cleaned it up, not a pleasant task.
Black snakes and some others stink to me. If you pick them up and then smell your hands, your hands stink. I pretty much don’t pick up snakes anymore because of the stink, unless I need to move them.
They do eat song birds though, as Ray mentions. Song birds are nice to watch, but they peck so much fruit, I’ve come to fairly dislike them. If I didn’t grow fruit, I’m sure I’d like them more. It’s all a matter of perspective I guess.
I raise bluebirds and hold out hope they might eat insect pests on my apple trees. They do love to perch in the trees and on the deer cages when they hunt for bugs. Wonder if they eat Japanese Beetles?
My dog caught another possum this week, I think that is four since last winter. I kill a dten or less squirrels a year. I suspect that here in the country they have enough predators and limited food supply that it naturally helps keep them in check. My mom feeds them at her house and they are absolutely every where
@rayrose, what do you use to get the squirrels? I have a large squirrel problem, but I don’t have time to shoot them. I’ve put out different types of traps but they don’t generally go for the bait (peanut butter or sunflower seeds). There are a ton of pecans and other acorns on the ground so they seem to ignore bait…
Jon I use sunflower seeds. My squirrels CANNOT resist them. I do
catch more during Fall and Winter. Some people use shelled corn, but that never worked for me.