Baiting a Trap for Raccoon
We have a friend who slowly lost pretty much his entire flock of chickens to raccoons last year. So when we had raccoons going after our chickens, we called him up and asked his advice. Using this technique we caught five raccoons in five days (using two live cage style traps).
Cut off the bottom one-fourth to one-third of a soda can. You can bend the sharp edge in to make it easier to handle and to increase its strength if you like (we did).
Poke two holes in the can bottom, opposite one another.
Fill the little "cup" on the bottom of the can with peanut butter, and wire the can bottom to the cage with any old wire you have lying around. Thread the wire through the two holes.This gives a large yummy-smelling peanut-buttery surface to attract the raccoon. Also wiring it in place is important because raccoons will barely enter the trap and reach as far as they can with their little "hands" and grab the bait and run away with it if it is not wired down. They can do this without tripping the trap mechanism.
Labels: country living
posted by Leslie @ 8:11 AM
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Clever. Will it work on opposums?
I expect not, Pablo, because when we were trying to catch foxes (completely unsuccessfully, I might add) we used raw chicken thighs (from the grocery store, not from our precious beloveds).
We caught an opossum two or three times and the neighbor's cat twice, but no foxes.
When baiting with peanut butter we caught neither cat nor opossum. We did get a few licks from what we presume was a pack rat. The chicken house is overrun with those monkeys.
I like this bait idea. We caught a raccoon a few weeks ago (we have chickens as well) in a Hav-a-Hart trap with canned cat food. Let me tell you, their "cuteness" soon disappears when they growl and hiss at you! Our dog was beside herself when she saw it.
Under the cover of darkness, we drove him across the freeway and down to Lake Michigan and let him go. If he can cross 4 lanes of traffic on I-96 and get back, it will be a true miracle.
We have not had any raccoon slaughters yet. Two of our birds fell prey to a hawk last year. That's when I built "the bunker"!
Good Luck
Thomas Allen, they are feisty little buggers, that's for sure!
We've caught six now, and last night had both baits stolen but neither trap was sprung! It strikes fear into our hearts knowing we still have predators and that they're getting trap savvy.
I don't *think* we've suffered any hawk losses. I *think* ours are mostly due to raccoons and a little bit to foxes.
Our pitiful little flock is down to two hens and a roo. We're ditching the chicken house we inherited as soon as possible. We're planning our own bunker :)
Nothing like having critters (and losing them) to make you learn how to build a better chicken coop/rabbit pen/ etc.
Brilliant. Thank you, thank you, thank you. We couldn't figure out how the little blighters could snatch the bait without springing the trap. I read this last night and within an hour we had caught the first of 4 raccoons who are living in our attic. Number two barely escaped being put in the Bandit Relocation Program, but my son was new at setting the (old) Havaheart trap.
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