I was given a couple of A24 traps to install on my property. I was very excited to try them out. I bought the lure, set them up and got ready to start clearing out rat carcasses. Alas, I have not caught a single rat with them. I have tested all functions and it seems operational. The piston is live and the lure dispenser is activated. There are rats in the area that I am catching in my conventional traps near by.
Am I doing something wrong, or is the trap design flawed? Many people on the internet appear to be getting the same disappointing results with this model trap.
One thing I’ve heard is that it’s important to get the height right for the target animal (not too high or too low), and check that the lumps and bumps of the tree trunk aren’t angling the trap subtly outwards and possibly making the animal’s forepaws lose their grip on the plastic as they climb in.
How high to set a Goodnature A24 - Goodnature NZ
Also, make sure to smear plenty of lure around on nearby trees so the animals are able to prefeed and get a good taste of the lure before they have to poke their heads into the funny-looking tube.
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Hi A few people do get some success with them but generally they do not seem to be that appealing for rats. but could the carcasses be taken by say a Cat. Most experianced people tend to think the rats do not like to put their head up into the dead end dark place
One Pindone operation I helped with a couple of the Bait stations were a couple of metres from the A24’s no kills recorded on the A24 counters but Pindone was all gone, was not possums as they had my excluder baffles fitted
Thanks for your reply Dave. I have snap traps in the area and they are catching rats. I check them every day.
I would think if the A24 was doing its job, then I would at least find some dead rats before they are carried away. I tend to think the trap is ineffective, but would be pleased if it were user error somehow and could he fixed.
Perhaps if I remove the top to give a clear view through and find another solution for the lure?
Hi I have a few traps here that were removed from a project, I have never got around to it but what I looked at doing was removing the top, get a piece of 10 mm sq mesh fix it to the now open top of trap then drill a hole in the side near the top and rig up some sort of method for getting lure inside, just needs to be robust or the rats will chew through it,
Thinking about it a first stage trial could be if you made the mesh top easy to remove you could just smear some peanut butter or another lure around the inside of the opening and see what happens, invertebrate can still eat it and it will tend to wash away in heavy rain but it might give an indication to if it’s worth taking any further
cheers
I’ve been knocking down some rats with A24s lately. Just as many as go into the Victor boxes. But my setup might be slightly different. My autolure is long gone, so I just stuff Nutella in the opening of the old autolure pouch and screw it back on. I put some Nutella around the entrance to the A24 and I usually mount them up a tree on a sloping branch or just above a knot that makes a bit of a ladder for easier access. Note that the Nutella does need to go mouldy pretty quickly at this time of year depending on how many spores are around.
So this is for ship rats as our Norwegian friends are less likely to be roaming around up trees and TBH, I’m not sure I’ve ever caught a Norway in an A24 as they’re a smarter and often go for meat lures, which Goodnature has, but I can’t comment too much on that.
Also, if mice are present, they can often get into the lure without the triggering the trap.
An A24 smashed a possum on the nose last month. He was none too pleased, but he should keep his sticky beak out now.
It is sad to see how people invest in the A24 but then give up – don’t give up – keep trying different placement and different lures – plus some incentives around the trap
I have been using them since they were first developed and have tried lots of options for placement and lures
Keep in mind that ship rats are very agile animals – they can climb vertical and I have videos of them leaping onto a top barb wire fence and walking along the wire
Our support partner bought us ten A24s about ten years ago and they are still out in the bush (after a GN upgrade)working and getting occasional results – often ten strikes when I change the lure and gas bottle
I get lazy at times and mount them vertical about 125mm above the ground – but generally I mount them on a low root so the trap is on about 45 degrees – it gives them a good view and easy access into the trap – a simple 100*25 frame with a 45 degree base is useful if you want to move it around the section – put the trap on the ramp or just above it
Lure is likely the main problem – often there is heaps of natural food around so they don’t bother about artificial foods – I have used possum paste successfully for many years – I tried chocolate when the auto feeders fires came out and it was hopeless so pushed the chocolate out and reloaded with possum paste – but then meat lovers was developed and it works well – if you want results – throw some flour/icing sugar mix around
I have tested the A24 mounted beside open snap traps on many sites – the snap trap wins every time
So if you have $150 to spend on traps – just buy 10 snap traps – not an A24 – boxes are simple to make and coreflute covers even less expensive
Don’t put the A24 on a shelf somewhere – keep trying different options to get results
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I’m still looking after 40 A24s in welly bush environments. We get mixed results but the comon trend is nothing recorded on counters at 6mth checks. We are using ALPs but know they are only good for 3mths max. We are playing with reconditioning traps that have failed on service. These traps are aĺl out of warranty. A complete strip down and some plumbers grease on all rubber parts seems to be enough to get them going again. Shortly to experiment with a transparent/translucent 3D printed shroud as i believe the trap interior is not welcoming to many critters. Will post here the results of that experiment. We can’t mount traps low on trees as we have too many pigs who knock them off mounts.
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Hi
Engineering/ mechanics is my living as a suggestion you would be better buying a tub of Rubber Grease available any enginering supplier or Repco Supercheap type places.
You have probably already thought of it but If you put them up in a tree it is probably best to put a small ledge or similar underneath for the rat to stand on while it reaches up into the trap, if you want it to kill itself might as well make it easy for them
The A24 strike counter that you will see in my pictures will run out of battery after a few years – GN will tell you they are not able to be repaired and suggest that you purchase a new one
It is a simple process to lever out the end cap with a small screw driver – remove the CR1632 battery and replace – when installing the end cap just rub some grease around the O ring and snap closed - batteries are just a few dollars each – the more modern strike counters also require a battery change
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It is very difficult to get a complete picture of the good and bad of A24 use, as anything negative seems to dissappear from the internet very quickly - and there have been a some very clear science trials and large scale experiments with them, that are no longer available to be read, that didn’t paint a good picture. The general gist seems to be that initially you catch the odd extremely hungry/dumb/bold rat and then nothing. In large scale trials they don’t control rat numbers to low enough levels to get a useful outcome. I was involved in some early small trials of both A24 and A12s when they first came out and we ended up with no useful outcome except loads of video of rats and possums playing on them, or resting on them to survey their surrounds, but no real interest in putting their heads in them. Considering the initial cost, the ongoing maintenance requirements, and poor outcomes I don’t use them and don’t recommend them to others. We had to reduce our bait station network to 50m intervals to make any serious inroads on rat numbers due to the size of their territories, so if we use a 100m x 50m grid as the requirement to control rats in forests, that is 2 traps (or stations) per hectare. On a small forest block of, say, 100 hectares, you would need 200 of the A24’s at $160 or something each = $32,000. Add maintenance and management and I will take pindone or many other rait baits that are suitable in a bait station thanks. In a Predator Free Hawkes Bay report, at Boundary Stream (800ha) where DOC use A24s, it cost (from memory) $13,000, 3 times a year for a contractor to carry out the maintenance required. That doesn’t sound like a good investment to me.
In residential areas, parks, or easily accessible farmland, where you won’t want to use toxins due to farm animals, pets or kids, you are better off with a Victor (in a box for safety), and check it once a week or so. In estuaries and wetland you can place these on a floating raft so they don’t get submerged. Expensive and/or lots of advertising doesn’t always equal best, (or sometimes even useful) and remember horses for courses. There may be instances or situations where they have a place but I very much doubt it is in Aotearoa ngahere, from my personal experience or reading.
And while I am moaning about equipment being promoted that don’t work or are far more expensive than other equally good options, I would also recommend that you don’t use stoat trap boxes with those pressed metal plates instead of the standard mesh. We had a standard DOC250 (with mesh ends) at a site for 80 months in which time it dealt to 20 ship rats, 2 stoats, 2 ferrets, 2 weasels and a rabbit. It was a bit beaten up so we replaced it with a PFNZ plated end trap (it had been given to us). In 18 months not a single victim. Back to a new DOC 250 standard mesh-end box and in a week it had nobbled a weasel and in the 18 months since installation 4 ship rats and another weasel, and those kills occurred after we improved our toxin knock downs so there were less pests around. Our target animals, generally, do NOT like putting their heads into closed spaces. If it looks and feels like a trap - then it probably is. They are naturally cautious.
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And I should have said in yesterdays post - DO NOT USE A24 IF YOU HAVE KIWI. If set near the ground, as advised for rats, kiwi will push their beaks up into them and end up dying of starvation with their beak (including their nostrils) smashed. Apparently also known to kill titipounamu/riflemen. They go up into the dark cavity where they are looking for spiders and insects.
To add to that, after concerns were raised about possible Kiwi Deaths which was later confirmed through trial work at two sanctuaries where the A24 were disabled and Kiwi interactions observed on camera, we removed all A24 traps from our operation. The only reason we ever had them was a requirement to keep Toxins well away from a water source that local farmers were using.
Weka are probably also at risk as they will play around with anything
Back in 2018 the dangers to Kea were all over the News
When you see the damage birds like Weka and Kea can do Personally I would not trust any of the fancy little cages they came up with to attach to the traps to try and reduce deaths to NON target species