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Post by feather on Aug 4, 2019 17:26:57 GMT
I am losing cantaloupes. Possum in trap yesterday, last night something big got in the box trap, ate the base and backed out. The trap is big enough for raccoon, so I suspect coyote or dog. Next setting is the BIG trap, large enough for coyote. If you can, how about some pictures? I know we have coyotes around here, we hear them at night.
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Post by feather on Aug 4, 2019 20:15:25 GMT
Feather, have you tried blood meal or urine, purchased coyote or domestically produced, if you get my drift ? UR-ine trouble now.
Are you saying we should catch and squeeze a fox or coyote? DH says he is going to the trapper's convention up north next month, so he'll be able to get some fox juice or coyote juice there.
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Post by Mari-in-IN on Aug 4, 2019 20:21:58 GMT
Feather, have you tried blood meal or urine, purchased coyote or domestically produced, if you get my drift ? Are you saying we should catch and squeeze a fox or coyote? DH says he is going to the trapper's convention up north next month, so he'll be able to get some fox juice or coyote juice there.
Hee hee - I kind of wondered if mogal meant something a little different than what you are thinking... I will leave it at that! Your comment though feather is hilarious! ~Mari
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Post by mogal on Aug 4, 2019 20:25:29 GMT
Are you saying we should catch and squeeze a fox or coyote? DH says he is going to the trapper's convention up north next month, so he'll be able to get some fox juice or coyote juice there.
If you do catch/squeeze a fox or coyote, TAKE PICTURES. I'd pay money to see that Won't next month be a little late? Human urine is supposed to be just as effective, easily acquired and applied. You have close neighbors so I'd recommend a sprayer of some sort... Sorry about your cantaloupes, Oxankle2.
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Post by feather on Aug 4, 2019 20:28:41 GMT
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Post by feather on Aug 5, 2019 1:18:29 GMT
DH dispatched a chipmunk and a rabbit tonight. We are making progress!!!
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Post by feather on Aug 5, 2019 16:32:07 GMT
At 11 am I checked out the yard to make sure the fawns weren't eating kale. At 11:30 there they were, eating at the blackberry vine restaurant!! Darn it. I yelled at them and they took off running. They usually show up near 11, today they were a little late.
EDIT: 10 minutes later a small pale red fox ran from the chicken coops west of our yard, back to the swampy area.
No animals in the traps.
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Post by Tim Horton on Aug 6, 2019 1:37:40 GMT
Feather..... A word of advise... Take a 2 foot length of 1/4 inch steel rod. Bend a 3-4 inch U shape on one end for a handle of sorts.
Put the rod on the inside of the cage on the opposite side of the bar from the trigger plate to the door hook. Drive the rod into the ground until it is solid.
In your pictures you see where the animal is reaching out scratching at the ground. If they can turn the trap on its side or up side down they have a better chance of getting out. Even out of that kind and size of live trap.
Alternative... Set the trap next to a tree, post, building and put a light chain from the top of the trap to something above the trap. Do not suspend the trap from the chain, but make it snug enough the animal can not turn the trap on its side.
!@#$% Take the problem you are having with raccoons and ramp it up to a 100 - 240 kilo animal and some years you have out situation with bears...
For chipmunks, take a Victor wood board rat trap, from the bottom, put 3-4 brad nails up through the top along the edge behind where the kill bar comes down. Bait with a salted in the shell peanut tied to the trigger pan with florist, gardeners wire. Tie a heavy string to the trap and tie it off. If something wants to consume the chipmunk in the trap, fine, just don't loose the trap. I don't play fair or nice, I play to win.
!@#$% Some times it is easier to plant a sacrificial plant to keep deer and moose away from other things. If kale works, plant a lot as what I've had of it wasn't good.... Spit... Bletch.....
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Post by feather on Aug 6, 2019 23:28:22 GMT
Tim Horton, I think our beans became our sacrificial plants this year. Thanks for all the tips. The raccoons only turned one of the traps over, onto the landscape fabric, and ripped that to shreds under where the cage landed. Thank God we don't have bears this far south. Today: no sign of rabbits, foxes, fawns, chippies, raccoons. We might have made a good dent in the problem population.
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Post by Woodpecker on Aug 7, 2019 15:30:31 GMT
I detest squirrels...every year when I plant my flowers for the pots at my front door and the barrel pot on my corner, top of street, they dig them up! I lost so many plants this year, not chippies or raccoons, which we have here too. They don't like flowers, I guess I know ya'll don't like rabbits, but I saw the tiniest baby bunny this morning on my walk, right across from the beach. He was so cute, sorry everyone, I like rabbits.
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Post by feather on Aug 7, 2019 16:51:32 GMT
Woodpecker, one morning my grown up son and I were watching a baby rabbit out the front door. He mentioned how cute it was and I agreed. That's the tough part, knowing they will wipe out our garden and limit our available food. I told him, that I didn't and couldn't watch killing the rabbits. It's not that I disagree with killing them at all, we have to do this to have our gardens. It's just not a sight I want to watch. It's not that we all don't like them. Does that make it clear as mud?
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Post by Woodpecker on Aug 7, 2019 16:59:13 GMT
Clearer than mud
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Post by feather on Aug 8, 2019 15:36:58 GMT
Nothing in both types of traps. A chipmunk was again on the deck looking in the window, until it saw me, and took off. It must be a clever chipmunk to avoid the traps by the strawberries.
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Post by midtnmama on Aug 9, 2019 11:41:35 GMT
feather, That chipmunk was in your window saying, "Neener, Neener."
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Post by feather on Aug 9, 2019 15:20:02 GMT
midtnmama, I think you're right. We did finally get ONE chipmunk yesterday, but I don't think it was THAT one. Traps are all empty again this morning.
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Post by feather on Aug 10, 2019 17:40:40 GMT
So, the deer fawns were eating apples today at the apple trees. DH sneaks up from the deck, with camera, behind a big pile of branches (the burn pile), and gets this picture.
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Post by susannah on Aug 11, 2019 1:02:18 GMT
So, the deer fawns were eating apples today at the apple trees. DH sneaks up from the deck, with camera, behind a big pile of branches (the burn pile), and gets this picture. Now that looks like what I see out my kitchen window just about every day this summer. It's apple year for our biennial apple tree and the deer know it. Dh is constantly grumbling about how the deer are knocking over the wood in the face cord rack that for some strange reason is located right beneath the apple tree. I keep reminding him that I'm not the one who set the rack up under a tree that sees several deer visiting it each day. I mean, they're sleeping under that tree for heavens sake. Sometimes I think the man just enjoys complaining...
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Post by mogal on Aug 11, 2019 11:09:50 GMT
DH dealt with a big opossum in a pine tree on Thursday. With all the damage others have incurred, it seemed unremarkable except that it was about 10' up in this tree. A check on line--yes, they are semi-arboreal and I didn't know that!
On the up side, DH went out to get the mower yesterday and saw a covey of 7 quail that must be living in the windbreak. This year, it's hard to go 5 minutes without hearing them call. Beautiful little birds and they bring up a very happy memory of my grandfather with those calls. He was 70 when I was born so he was getting fairly infirm by the time I was more or less independent. One summer, he was out on the porch as was his habit. I was roaming around the yard when I heard and answered the call of a bobwhite quail across the road to the south. We didn't have many there at the time. I don't know how long I played the game before I went to join Papa on the porch. He immediately asked me if I'd seen the quail right in the side yard. I'm not sure if he were disappointed it wasn't a real bird or pleased that I could mimic one so well.
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Post by oxankle2 on Aug 11, 2019 13:28:41 GMT
I have found that a 7 inch conibear trap is the surest thing for trap-wise coons and larger animals that escape box traps. Take a five gallon bucket, cut a slot in each side of the bucket just deep enough to allow you to place the springs of the trap inside. Bait in the bottom of the bucket, place the bucket with loaded trap on its side, triggers hanging down from top. Be sure the bait stays in the back/bottom of the bucket.
You will have to place rocks or stakes against the side of the bucket to keep it steady and in place, and of course you will have to anchor the trap chain. Varmint sticks head in to get bait, curtains for varmint.
This is a quick kill trap, so do not expect to relocate anything that gets in it, and handle it carefully; ranger told me he got one set for beaver, caught his own foot with boot on, had a devil of a time getting it off.
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Post by 1shotwade on Aug 11, 2019 16:07:49 GMT
I never set a conibear with the trigger on top! I used to until I set a 330 in a beaver run. I turned a $40 beaver into $15 because the trigger stripped a wide patch of fur off the back and neck of the beaver. Wade
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Post by feather on Aug 11, 2019 20:21:43 GMT
Nothing in the traps this morning. One rabbit being chased around the yard by DH. One chipmunk coming up on the deck. Fawns eating at the apple trees at about 1 pm.
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Post by feather on Aug 14, 2019 15:19:05 GMT
A squirrel in a live trap today. Haven't seen the deer in a couple days. I think we've thinned the crowd.
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Post by feather on Aug 15, 2019 17:18:52 GMT
It's just noon and we've had to run off the two fawns, twice already, first feasting on kale, then on apple trees.
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Post by susannah on Aug 16, 2019 0:47:56 GMT
feather I just had to chase off 3 deer not 15 minutes ago. They were feasting on the new grass that I'd planted on the new hill that resulted from the new garage (got that?). The deer are so freakishly tame though. Only the fawn (who Amelia named Rose but who is in fact a boy - which makes sense since the fawn her brother named Jim is a female) ran off. I'm trying to save that new grass so I actually had to go out there and run at them. Which got the second one moving. The third one just stared at me as I advanced on her, telling her to move on, clapping my hands, raising my voice...she finally took off when I was about 5 feet away. Dh - who watched this - laughed and said "She's been around too long to be scared off by you; she knows you're nice." This is all his fault for putting a rack of wood under the apple tree, as I mentioned in my previous post. If he hadn't done that, they'd be raiding the apple tree (the apples are NOT good for anything, even applesauce couldn't salvage them and make them taste good) instead of eating the grass. I swear I am unloading that rack and moving it tomorrow.
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Post by feather on Aug 16, 2019 1:08:17 GMT
susannah , yep got it. I know you are moving those hills of dirt (and buried roots of a tree). These two fawns have been running without a parent and they still have their white spots. I think they are getting too used to being around all our houses but find the gardens to be easy pickin's and the mother isn't teaching them to forage. We get about 20 feet from them yelling before they run, and that's not good. They're going to be an easy target on the roads and once hunting season starts if they aren't afraid of humans. There was a very big fox this afternoon, we weren't sure if it was a coyote at first because of its size, but then it ran and we could see the white tip of its tail.
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Post by feather on Aug 18, 2019 14:51:08 GMT
The deer must have grazed during the night. Ate half my kale in the back garden (a lot), all the beet tops, and one zucchini plant. So we'll harvest the beets.
They are leaving the tomatoes and onions and potatoes alone. Thank God.
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Post by comfortablynumb on Aug 18, 2019 21:31:35 GMT
I used to trap and tag trash pandas and drop them off a mile away or more in the woods.
Most of them found their way back to my house.
For a long time we had no trash pandas. Now we got in a habit of feeding the cats outside at night and now we have trash pandas.
2 big ones and one little wee one. The big ones run when the door is opened, the little one sits in the cat foo bowl like... "what... the cats said it was cool. want some?"
I got out the box trap. I caught 4 cats. No trash pandas.
I have to get some ear corn for the trap.
What will happen to the captive trash panda is still undecided.
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Post by oxankle2 on Aug 18, 2019 21:57:03 GMT
Wade; thanks for the comment; upon reflection I think I will try setting the traps your way. For one thing, I think this may result in catching smaller varmints that can go under or around the trigger, especially if I bend the wires into a Y.
C. NUMB; I had to look "trash Panda" up. Bought my first DP coon traps and found I was too weak to set them without a setter. Got the setter; look out Mr Coon! All the material says dog proof traps will catch only coon, possum and sometimes skunk, so cats are safe. The folks at the park in front of the cabin failed to properly close up their trash after a rodeo and coons made a big mess---fortunately two blocks from the house. The arena is at the far end of the park, kids'soccer fields closer.
I also would like someone to tell me about a foolproof squirrel trap. I suspect squirrels of stealing bait from my box traps. Thieving little illegitimates.
I guess I should just bite the bullet and put some new batteries in my camera.
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Post by 1shotwade on Aug 18, 2019 22:42:19 GMT
As most of you know the dog-proof is a recent invention. What many may not know is the origin. I went to a little fort/camp thing years ago in Mississippi. It was from 1600s-1700s. Anyway, in that time period when this settlement was active, they would go out in the bay during low tide and gather the"water cats"! A water cat is what we now call a raccoon. Seems a raccoon or water cat has a habit of NEVER turning loose of food once they get their paws on it. (I have had a total of 17 pet raccoons in my life and can vouch for that.)
Anyway, as the story goes, the raccoons would go out into the clam and oyster beds during low tide at night and get their paws in a shell and hold on to the clam/oyster until it released the pressure and the coon was able to retrieve his meal. The problem with that was that the tide would come back in and drown the raccoons before they were able to coaks the oysters from its shell. In the morning the settlers would go out when the tide was going out and retrieve the "water cats and use them for food and pelt to trade. In this small museum, they had traps that those settlers designed to trap the water cats. They were a 4" piece of 2x2 with about a 1" hole drilled down the center and stopping before exiting the other side. They then added a wood screw to each side, angled toward the bottom of the hole and attached a chain to the trap. It was tied off to a tree limb and baited with oysters. When the coon reached in for the bait the pointed screws kept him from withdrawing its paw and the trapper would just knock them in the head and reset the trap. If the coon would have let go of the bait, it could have removed its paw but that is not what coons do.
To continue the advancement of this trap design, for many years afterward, including while I trapped in my younger years, a glass one-gallon jug tied off to a bush with wire was your coon trap. Of course, it must be placed somewhere that the glass jug doesn't get broken. I set the jugs along a coon trail and baited with marshmallows. Coon love them and they are very visible except in snow. Put 2-3 on the trail, then a couple inside the jug. Next, roll up a ball on aluminum foil squeezed down tight, that will just fit into the mouth of the jug. Put it all the way back into the jug then add a couple of marshmellows.
In the morning you will find all the marshmallows gone and the coon with its paw inside the jug wrapped around the ball of foil. Guarantee it! Works every time. Sometimes you catch a sow with the litter still with her and fine 3-4 young just hanging around waiting for mom! Wade
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Post by feather on Aug 19, 2019 21:15:48 GMT
A rabbit died of lead poisoning. Is there no end to the garden eaters?
I appreciate all the trapper's talk here. The glass gallon jug story, wow, that is wild.
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