How do you run the pump manually?
You can operate the pump manually if you don’t have the app. The instructions are on underneath side of the lid. From memory it is three presses of the start button, light will go orange, then press the button and pump will operate. To set the trap off it is 2 presses of the same button. Disconnect battery after.
I have a number of these traps and I have caught at least 2 feral cats so far, I don’t think they go after the bait but go after the mice and rats that get hung up inside the cage.
I would be cautious about using them where domestic cats are present, I wouldn’t use a ramp and keep them at least 1200mm off the ground. I don’t routinely use ramps and from the camera observation this does not deter rats, mice or possums but does deter feral cats I think. Mind you cats are perfectly capable of climbing trees.
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People using AT220’s might like to view the attached video, gives you an idea of what they have to put up with. This trap is 1200 off the ground, gives you an idea of the size of the pig. Pig must have been alerted by the trap going off and run over before the possum had dropped out. I have several broken Trapinators in same area. Same culprit I’m guessing.
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Sorry I couldn’t attach a video, only pics and pdf seems to be allowed.
It is a video of a large pig trying to pull a possum out of the AT220 trap. Stands at least a metre at the withers.
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We have a fleet of 175 AT220s. As a matter of policy, we do not deploy within 150m of residential areas. Over 18 months of use, we have caught six feral cats deep in the reserve, we have never caught a domestic cat. The challenge you face is that a month of trial isn’t going to be statistically valid… it just isn’t enough time to be sure that you’re not going to catch a domestic cat.
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Here is that very pig and possum:
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I half agree with you. Firstly your numbers don’t speak to our project - if you have them far away from pet cats, you can’t then say “we catch no pet cats”. Of course you don’t.
But yes, I think you’re right that a month isn’t long enough. In fact, you can never really entirely disprove something like this.
I guess the reverse is true though, in that all we need to see is one cat go up the ramp (yes we have ramps there - I want to make it as likely as possible that pet cats will interact with the trap whilst they’re off and we can see them doing so) to our traps and we’ll know we can’t use them there.
super helpful to have this step by step! Here’s a very basic question though - how did you know there was a blockage in the first place? thanks
This was a while ago! It would have been part of routine maintenance, ie when you are checking the trap you take the top off, press the button once to wake up. The green light should then flash on and off and the pump should turn a few rotataions and dribble lure down into the tray / drop on to the ramp below. If the pump is turning and no lure is coming out, either you are short of lure or you may have a blockage. If you then go on to press 3 times so you can manually turn the pump and still no lure is appearing then you have a problem you need to fix. If no lure is coming out rhen you are unlikely to catch anything!
Kia ora koutou
The Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group, on the Otago Peninsula are working on possum eradication and have used AT220s since 2019. Auto Traps have improved their AT220 a lot since the early days and provided great support every time we have needed to upgrade to their improved traps. I admire how they have stuck with this effective trap (when it works well) and highly recommend having AT220s in your trapping network. We have 300 AT220 over 8,200 hectares. We have used other traps and toxin too because in our experience some possums can prefer different foods and avoid placing head into traps. Autotraps have recently informed me that they are close to releasing different flavoured lures in pouches so that will be fantastic. We are now at low density levels and have many areas on the Peninsula that are either clean or have a random possum walk past a trail camera and ignore a trap. Like it’s passing through. These possums are hard to target and that’s where the AT220 becomes very important and for it to be working well. So when these wanderers (I’d imagine a male searching for a female mate) are searching they come across an attractive AT220.
We are wanting to convert all our AT220 to the pouch system to improve the mayo dispensing and be ready for the change in lure flavours when this is released. Has any group converted their AT220 to the pouch system or use the AT220 with pouches and can let me know how that went for them? Including good stories or:and any issues?
Kind regards
Paula
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Amazing work from your crew Paula. We are based out on the Taiari plain in and around the wetlands. We do have a few AT220s in the wetlands, but are currently rolling out a network of around 35 traps into the native forest within the pine plantation just above where we are. We have just purchased our traps so these ones are all pouch style - so far they have been great to install and seem to be operating well at the point of deployment. We’ll be heading in to do our first initial checks next week to just make sure things are operating as they should.
The only tiny issue I noticed on one trap we put out this week which is easily avoidable, is that the short piece of tubing just before the lure pump is very soft and can be twisted when installing the pouch in such a way that the lure cannot flow through. Very much just a ‘do it carefully and you’ll have no issues’ problem but just a little thing to note! It would be easy to miss and then have a trap out there that seems like it is fine but has a kink in the pipe and no lure making it out.
Interested to hear what others have to say on the matter though as we are in the learning stages!
@david.swann.new.zeal might have some good information on the topic of converting from bottle to pouch style, their network at Motupōhue/Bluff hill is very extensive and a more similar goal to you than what we are currently doing. He was gracious enough to have our trapping team go for a visit and talk to us about their work, it was inspiring and impressive!
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Thanks for the heads up about the flavoured lures and the subsequent mention! We have a fleet of 170 AT220s of which 20 are the ‘new’ pouch style. It’s been a great update although the older ‘lure bottle’ models continue to perform really well so we’re holding off upgrading them. We’ll certainly check for kinks in the tubing… and test out the new lure flavours once they’re released.
I’ll repeat something I’ve mentioned previously. If you have high mouse numbers (likely if you’re bringing down the rat population), you might have the same problem we’d identified. Mice were taking advantage of daytime safe mode to clean up the lure cup. But they were then getting greedy and licking lure out of the tube where it sticks through the top of the trap. They were then tugging down the tube to get more and in the process, chewing the tube shorter. eventually, the tube was shortened to the point where it was dispensing lure into the top of the trap. We solved the problem by using stainless steel drinking straws cut to length and flared to protect the end of the tube. We haven’t had a problem since.
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Related to this topic, I’m interested to know how often other trapping groups swap out the battery and how often they top up the (smaller) 350g pouch? I try to combine both jobs every 4 to 6 weeks. cheers, Tony
Thanks for this great feedback. It’s brilliant to learn from others and their trials. The tubing is super important to get right. The metal straw idea is a really great one and I’m going to look at doing this for our up and coming trap upgrades. Is it possible for you to post a photo of this, David Or you can email a photo to me operations@opbg.nz
Our AT220 schedule is a 3 monthly check.
Our batteries are coming up to 3 years old and some are older snd starting to wonder about their life so we are sending them up to Autotraps to test them.
Cheers
Paula
I’ve just bought the AT220 and on the second night after trying to luring rats with rat poison screwed to the tree just under the trap, the bait was taken. I thought he’ll be back so didn’t replace the small block of poison. However the thief was a possum and he did come back. We were woken by this periotic banging and it took a couple of goes at investigation as to what was making this sound. To our disappointment it was a live possum caught by it’s head in the AT220 and he had been suffering. I had to put him out of his misery so I’m really hoping this was a one off incident. I took a video of it but this site doesn’t allow it to be uploaded.
I recommend you get in touch with NZ Autotraps about this. They will want to know: Contact Us General Enquiries – NZ AutoTraps
Did you get a response to this?
The response is that you can’t leave them powered on, pumping out lure without them also being in the ‘kill’ state.
So for a month I went to our traps (they’re nearby my house) and manually pumped lure out - by connecting the battery, pressing the button 3 times to get it into ‘pump mode’, pumping out some lure and then disconnecting the battery again.
With fresh batteries and a full lure pouch I’ve exceeded 4 months. Aiming for 6 next time.