I do recall seeing a few posts where some of you have mentioned that Timms traps can just about nail anything including cats and rabbits. My neighbour has had his pear trees massacred by possums, so the next day he set a Timms with pear only as the bait. No possum, but good rabbit catch! I have shot quite a few but am unable to do so at the top part of my property as its right next to the road
Ooh that is a good catch! We recently set a timms trap in our nursery as something was eating the broadleaf seedlings - thought it was likely rabbits but we have had a possum in there before so set the timms because we had it, as well as some trailcams. It was indeed rabbits, we didn’t catch any (not surprising as it was baited with peanut oil) but now I’m thinking perhaps we should bait one with a carrot or something more rabbit-tasty and see if it works!
As you said they can definitely kill anything of that small-med pest category, we have caught ferrets and hedgehogs in ours before. I think the main considerations are: make sure it is baited so that when the animal grabs the lure to pull, it’s head is vertical, not turned to the side - the trap is designed to come up under the chin/throat, if it is a side-to-side hit the animal may not be killed outright.
And although it will kill a cat if it gets in there well, cats are prone to dipping a paw in to fish out whatever is in there rather than sticking their head in the hole, potentially leading to a foul catch. Possums don’t really do that, I imagine rabbit paws would be pretty useless at grabbing so not as likely there either!
I was one of the people that posted about killing rabbits in Timms traps.
I’ve trapped a total of 6 rabbits using feijoas. The ones that I use are about the size of a golf ball and mounted horizontally. I’ve killed 1 rabbit with a piece of cinnamon-coated apple, which works well for possums.
I’ve killed 1 large ship rat in a Timms trap with a piece of cinnamon apple.
Pieces of firm, white fat are excellent lures to use in Timms traps to kill predators, including large brown/Norway rats. In a little over a year, I’ve trapped 4 brown rats in my Timms, using fat.
I hope that you’re able to trap some rabbits and/or rats.
Cheers.
Hi guys, back in our Dunedin days we got quite a few ferrets in our Timms traps (baited with apple and targeting possums).
Please don’t try and catch ferrets using the normal Timms, as it doesn’t catch them cleanly and kill quickly. The newer version with a tunnel entrance may work better, but in the standard version it always got them across the chest and probably killed slowly.
I’m all for killing pests but I believe we have to be as humane as possible about it.
