We have been very successfully using fresh rabbit as cat bait in cages and timms traps, but with the warmer weather it now goes off/becomes fly blown very quickly.
Has anyone had good success with other lures that last longer?
Cheers
One thing that has worked really well in my Timms traps are thick pieces of pork fat. Predators love fat more than anything else, and its firm texture keeps it in place on the skewer. In dry weather, it basically becomes jerky, which makes it almost impossible for predators to bite off. Cut it in to pieces about 4cm x 2cm, and make an X in the middle of the fat to allow you to skewer it. Be very careful with a knife making the X’s! The next time I make a batch, I’m going to use a nail to makethe holes, because I’m worried about suffering a nasty injury.
Sometimes I’ll pickle the pork in white vinegar for 2 days to make it last longer, and to keep insects away for a while (vinegar is an excellent ant-killer). I killed 4 feral cats in 2022 with vinegar-treated fat, so either they like vinegar, or don’t mind it. The smell of vinegar acts as a curiosity lure and after a sniff, they realise that they’ve found a chunk of pure fat! Because it’s so firm, they have to really sink their teeth in to it to get a bite. I’ve killed 3 large brown rats in Timms with firm pork fat for the same reason, and it’s only a matter of time before I kill a mustelid using it.
Another treatment for flesh/fat lures is to give them a coating of Goodnature’s Meat-lover’s lure, which predators are attracted to, but insects (including blowflies and wasps) and invertebrates aren’t (where I trap, at least). The coating gives the flesh long-lasting appeal, instead of smelling nice for a little while and then starting to smell bad. As the flesh lure rots, the meat-lover’s lure helps to mask the smell, too, which is important when you’re trying to trap mustelids and cats. FYI, humans can’t smell the lure, but to predators it smells like fresh blood. It could also go on the pork pieces instead of using them as is, or pickling them in vinegar.
The only downside to using Meat-lover’s lure, is that blackbirds and song thrushes like it, so bird by-kill may increase, and/or they may get trapped in cages more often.
It’s a cheap lure to use, because 1 sachet goes a long way. I highly-recommend trying it in your snap-traps, too.
Cheers.
Goodnature’s lures are waterproof and mould-resistant, so ff you’re suffering from warm, humid weather, your flesh lures will take a long time to go mouldy. 1 lure sachet goes a long way, so it’s a cheap lure to use.
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I would like to understand at what point fresh rabbit stops attracting cats. I think you are right thinking that the meat will become less attractive to a feral cat over time, but do they avoid maggoty meat. One day I’ll put some cameras on fresh rabbit and find out for sure. Perhaps somebody has tested this already?
Phil
In my experience, lures become unattractive to cats quickly, which is one of the reasons why they’re so difficult to trap. In a Timms trap at an exposed site, flesh lures can deteriorate in no time, especially during hot weather, and it won’t take long for blowflies and wasps to show up.
If there are cats around when I lure my Timms traps, the odds are very high that I’ll trap them within the first 24 hours. After 48 hours, kills are uncommon, and they’re almost always small, hungry juveniles, which can’t afford to be fussy.
I highly-recommend trying what I described in my previous post.
Good luck!
Agreed - even cooked pork fat, threaded/weaved onto the Timms spike works well and stays there. They gotta tug pretty hard to get it off and bam!
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