After listening to Cam’s sensible advice 2 years ago that stoats know birds aren’t laying eggs in winter I followed his advice and remove both plastic eggs and real eggs between April and October (Taranaki, bush and sub alpine, 900m altitude up to 1500m).
No definite results yet as my winter catch over 5 years up there has been weasels and rats only. Except for one stoat (yay) last month.
Someone recently queried this, saying something unusual like an egg out of season could make a stoat stop at a trap and consider entering.
Interesting thought as during winter I trial different extra lures to try get stoats to pause on their way past traps.
Eggs are always clean, in ‘nests’ and look as real as possible.
Who else removes eggs out of season?
What are your experiences?
I use fake hens’ eggs in my traps year-round, but not in every tunnel, and they aren’t the only lure. In my experience, using a variety of lures is the most effective way to trap predators, so I doubt that using eggs would be detrimental, as long as there are other lures of interest in your tunnels.
Whether or not eggs are effective winter lures, would require a lot of research. Some mustelids will be suspicious about eggs and stay away, some will be curious enough to check things out, while others will think that they’ve hit the jackpot and go for it.
Stoats are renowned for being difficult to trap in winter. The lures that have been the most effective for me are mice or rats. The body of another mustelid is another very effective lure.
Good luck.
Thanks. Yes guess I’m hoping someone has done some trials re eggs. And yes, for me too every rat becomes lure cos stoats love the brain and heart of it for protein.
As luck would have it, regarding the topic of using eggs as lures in winter, I trapped a female weasel yesterday.
Prominently displayed in the tunnel was a white plastic hens’ egg, an egg that a female weasel wouldn’t be able to eat, due to the small size of their jaws. Either the weasel realized this and ignored the egg, or it had never seen an egg before, and it was curious. I think it’s very unlikely that the egg lure played a role in the kill.
Before the weasel turned up, small rodents had eaten all of the mayo that I’d put inside the tunnel, so their activity was, almost certainly, the primary lure, because small rodents make up such a large % of the diet of female weasels. The secondary lure was probably the piece of tallow that I’d put inside a tea strainer.
If it was a male weasel that discovered the tunnel, the egg lure would probably have played a role, because the male weasels where I trap can reach the same size as stoats, so hens’ eggs are definitely on their menu.
Cheers.
Excellent catch, one more out of the breeding cycle. Yes your logic all makes sense. Thanks for that.
On mountain at moment for couple of nights and found a big male stoat in one of our traps on way up yesterday.
Looks like he’d eaten the rat head at entrance then run in to get remainder of carcass inside trap.
Great news on the stoat.
When I find a body that’s been partially scavenged, I move it to the rear of a tunnel, or in between 2 traps. I’d say that about half the time, I trap a predator within 12 hours. It isn’t necessarily the original scavenger that I end up trapping, but it’s still an effective technique.
If the brains of a mouse or rat are the only part of the body that have been eaten, it’s possible that the original scavenger won’t have any interest in the rest of the carcass, but it depends on how plentiful prey is in the area. I kill a large % of the rodents within 250m or so of my house, so when mustelids arrive on the property, there are slim pickings. The sight and smell of one or more rodents inside my tunnels becomes very tempting. Other lures are on offer, of course, but fresh rodents are a hard lure to beat. I’m going to start freezing some rats to use as stoat lures in the summer. It should take a while for a large rat to completely thaw and then rot.
Cheers.
We use eggs year round and still catch mustelids. We have caught 5 in the past week alone, all very fresh. Of course as others have said there would need to be in depth research done into whether it makes a significant difference. Presumably a mix of lures would work best!
Not entirely related but since people are talking about weasels;
I caught one in a Victor a few months ago and it was baited with peanut butter.
I thought that was a fluke but we just caught another one. Different place but a Victor baited with peanut butter again.
Great, possibly they are looking for fat and peanut butter is meeting that?
Hi, the research has been done that rabbit or salted rabbit catches 3 X as many mustelids as eggs.
back in 2005 they did some good pen trials one thing that came out was that because eggs are shells are porous the stoat can smell them, yes you might have some visual benefit.
However after saying that it is still good to have options out there for stoats (Ferrets are mostly just after Rabbit )
I can’t post the reports here but if you look at the link it will take you to some of the work I did in 2004/5
200 odd double set stoat/ferret traps alternating eggs and rabbit 20 years later that operation is still alternating eggs and rabbit in tunnels.
Fact Sheets & Reports - Ōtanewainuku Kiwi Trust
the summer after the trial I managed to get enough rabbits to have salted rabbit in every trap result was we never caught any more stoats than previous years it is a fairly intense network with a trap every 4.5 hectares, probably have more traps than needed so having some with an alternative lure like egg is worthwhile as they still catch some stoats.
unfortunatly now that there is very little good research done ( forget the companies doing research like ZIP it is mostly them justifying what they want to sell ), so what you do get now are plenty of opinions ( some good ones ) mostly with NO field trial backing.
DOC Northland followed up on my trial a year later and came up with the same results. I was talking to some of them last year they have tried all sorts in trials since like Beef, possum etc but rabbit still comes out on top, I have still not heard anything good about the Pokuru ? lure that Connovations now sell, but if anyone not associated with the lure has good results I would like to know
have a good day
Thanks Dave, great info. Nothing beats good ‘feet on the ground’ research.
I have tried a few different egg presentations in doc250/doc200 traps over the years – without a lot of success. Real eggs that become old rotten eggs, plastic eggs, ping pong balls, single eggs, two or three eggs, eggs standing on end or lying down, with feathers etc – I am totally confused about the subject but I need to know more.
If you look at a natural nest that has been raided – pheasant for example and I have seen plenty like this – nothing could be more un-natural than an egg in a doc250 box.
My wife spent three hours yesterday checking a line in the Park – one mouse, one hog and one possum – but she put in some effort with a couple of boxes to make a nest from natural material – pine needles and dry grass to make a new egg look a bit more natural – who knows if it will work. But it must be better than an egg in a hole in a piece of wood or an egg in a curled up piece of wire.
A Google egg search of my pictures shows mainly rat and hog kills throughout the year, but one April ferret and one June stoat – so you can see I am not a successful mustilid kill trapper – I have had much more success cage trapping ferrets throughout the year.
Is it reasonable to assume mice have been visiting your peanut butter, therefore it smells as much of mice as it does peanut butter?
Yes that could well be the case. Those traps will have both had mice caught in them too. We need some ‘Eu de Souris’ in a bottle that we can spray in the back of traps.
Hi Mindie
what you use as a lure really depends on what the goals are and what you want to target, can’t beat rabbit for ferrets, I also sometimes use cage traps for both ferrets and feral cats, if you watch a few you tube clips especially some Aust ones might pick up some tips like covering the cage
there was some good research done a couple of years ago on using bedding material from mice/rats as a lure worked good But of course where do you get it
have a good day
Thanks. Yes live capture cages are much better for ferret catch. I too have eggs lying down in “nests”.
First time posting be kind please, my 2c on eggs.
I have a couple of trap lines in the Canterbury high country around lakes. For health reasons, sad face, I have not been able to check these lines for 6 months plus… I got up to one of the lines yesterday but a reoccurrence of one of my health problems meant that I was only able to check 22 out of the 50 traps .
I predominately use eggs as a lure as I get them free. I will put a whole egg in the trap plus I will puncture an egg maybe 2 as I believe that mice will feed off the punctured egg adding “mouse smell” in the trap box ? Of the 22 traps I checked I caught 13 mustelids in varying states of decay. However 1 of the stoats had not been in the trap for more than a week, remembering this egg was 180 plus days old… another stoat was maximum of 30 days caught. Yeah I quite like eggs as a lure , they keep on working when you cant get there ?
My favourite lure though is plucked duck feathers with a couple of eggs. place a handful in the ‘bad news’ end of the trap with the eggs and also cover the treadle… the downside is the trap needs constant maintenance as the feathers will get wet and can interfere with the tripping of the trap after a while.
Oh I feel for you. I understand the absolute frustration of health issues.
Am glad you have access to real eggs. (Mostly I have to rely on plastic unless I am certain there’s a stoat hanging around and not getting caught, and then i’ll pay for eggs).
Yes a pierced egg is great too, am convinced the scent then attracts them even more so.
Am amazed eggs that old still caught stoats. Great stuff.
Love your idea of feathers on treadle. Brilliant. Yes more cleaning, but it makes that scary metal plate, look inviting. Am going to get some feathers and use that idea.
Thanks so much for sharing what works for you. Really appreciate it.