Any trappers here?

[sumi]

And mink?

 

[Hinotori]

The trapper's license and permits are too expensive here to trap stuff for profit. I can't legally go after the beaver without that as they are protected. Otherwise someone would have taken the stupid things out 35 years ago when they first dammed the stream and flooded all the hay fields into ponds.

Racoons, weasels, and opossums can be taken care of without that hassle if they are threatening my chickens. I have a live trap big enough to take a racoon. It's only been deployed to catch the opossum that killed a broody. Mostly it kept catching my cats. Well mostly it caught one specific cat since he's food greedy and too nosey.

 

[tortoise]

We use live traps for raccoons, skunk (once) and fox (once). How many times we caught my stupid mini poodle? I have no idea - it was daily for a while! DH was baiting the traps with canned cat food for a while.

 

[Chic Rustler]

You guys should try dog proof traps. Duke makes them for about $15. Easy to set and bait. Just put a marshmallow in it and stake it down close to the chicken coop. If theres a coon he will get it. They are too smart for live traps (most times)

 

[Chic Rustler]

And mink?

Not sure.

 

[tortoise]

My BIL swears by marshmallow to catch raccoon. I don't think it worked. Parts from the chickens they killed worked pretty well for raccoon and fox. We lost 21 chickens one year, DH trapped 6 or 8 raccoons and the skunk.

About a year later, I commented "we haven't had any predator problems with the chickens lately." Within a week, a fox came and killed all the meat chickens we were raising. He hung out around our barn for a while before DH rigged up a trap using a live chick as bait (no the chick wasn't harmed, but he caught the fox!)

That was last year. No predator problems since, but seeing as we're raising another bunch of meaties, I'm just going to keep my mouth shut.

 

[tortoise]

I don't have the dog anymore. He bit my kids. And DH. And me. And the dogsitter. I will never have a poodle again!

 

[NH Homesteader]

Good call! Poodles can be MEAN!

 

[Chic Rustler]

Get a great pyrenees.

 

[Chic Rustler]

Coons like anything sweet or fishy. Sweet will just catch coons. Fishy will target coons, possum and skunk. All can be caught in a duke dp.

I haven't seen anything here, im thinking my dogs keep stuff away, but i might set some dps anyway and see what happens.