Has anybody killed robins in snap traps that are mounted vertically?
I’m not referring to traps on ramps or tree limbs, but straight up and down on tree trunks and/or wooden posts. The base of the traps would be up high enough that a robin couldn’t access the treadle (maybe 20cm?), but I don’t know if they have the ability to hover.
There are a number of sites that look very promising for tree trapping. I kill plenty of ship rats on the ground, but I’d like to kill some in the trees, too (and the occasional mustelid, hopefully).
I’m paranoid about killing a robin, because they’ve just started to re-establish themselves here. Killing a robin, especially a female, would be a real setback.
Cheers.
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Hi, I’m keen to hear experiences re the success of vertically tree-mounted snap traps, as described in this post. I want to try one to combat a rat that has been eating the nara blocks out of my flipping timmys, but am unsure what threat this may represent for birds. Thanks in advance for your stories and advice! Cheers, Tony
I have trapped a number of rats, mainly browns, in my Timms on the ground, using solid pieces of cooked fat, usually from pork chops or pork steaks. Rats love fat, of course, and when it’s cooked, its firm texture really keeps it on the skewer (make a hole in the fat to make it easy to skewer). In order to get a decent bite, rats have to really sink their teeth into fat, increasing the odds that they’ll spring the trap. The rats that I kill in Timms are usually browns, which can reach an impressive size and weight, but I have killed several large ship rats in Timms, too.
I was using cinnamon-coated pieces of apple to trap possums, when I killed my last rat in a Timms. I don’t know how effective either lure might be at trapping rats in a vertical Timms, but they’re worth a go.
Try leaving the Flipping Timmy un-lured and unarmed. If you have a DOC tunnel close to the FT, use a Nara block as a lure, ideally the one that’s already been chewed on. There’s a decent chance that you could kill the problem rat if you attached a snap trap to the trunk, but there’s the risk of neophobia.
I hope that one of these options works.
Regarding vertical traps, I still haven’t tried them. My ground traps are killing a lot of rats right now, plus some weasels, so the wildlife here is pretty safe.
Cheers.
Thanks, I always value your comments … the area I’m trapping has given up about a dozen possums, 4 in the last month to my one FT so I added another one. I had a BT200 and 2 Victors in tunnels for 4 or 5 months but never caught anything at all so took them away. I have now added back the 2 victors near the base of the trees with pb as lure. the 2 nara blocks were chewed to shreds of plastic under the traps, so no good for anything else, although I like your idea of using them for bait on the BT. I also added some lures back in the FTs and left one a bit more sensitively set, so I’ll be keen to see what happens over the next few days … cheers, Tony
Thanks for the compliment. I like to swap thoughts with other trappers, trying to find solutions to our problems.
It’s possible that the rat likes the Nara blocks just to look after its teeth.
The rats here like to chew on the scraps of timber that I use in my DOC tunnels (like ramps) and that I make my snap trap tunnels out of.
If you skewer a piece of plastic, like a blue milk lid, inside a Flipping Timmy, the Nara rat might chew it to bits.
Fingers crossed that the sensitive setting offs the bastard!
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We have unfortuneately trapped robins in our ground set DOC 200 traps after using fat as a lure. Blackbirds also pretty keen on fat. The robins were particulary hard hit (6!)as we did the trail of crumbs technique…so devastating to our team. For now no more fat in robin habitat but possibly if would be ok without the crumbs/free food leading them in.
I have tree mounted traps D-rats just four of these and no robins in that site. Have caught one bird- I will need to check but it was an exotic passerine. Several mice. They are sited in a low rat area so just one rat caught so far. DOC 200 remain as my highest catching rat traps.
Blackbirds are also fond of blood and Goodnature’s Meat Lovers’ lure.
I use a lot of fat in my tunnels and snap traps, but I make it difficult for birds to detect.
I contacted an ornithologist about robins, asking how large a role their sense of smell plays in finding food. They primarily hunt by sight and sound, so they don’t rely on their sense of smell very much.
I’d have to crunch the numbers on which trap kills the majority of the predators here, but it’s probably the DOC 200, as well. It’s not the trap that’s better, necessarily, but the ability to use carcasses as lures in my DOC tunnels. I would be able to kill a lot of rats if I only used snap traps, but I would lose the ability to kill some of the trap-shy brown rats that visit the property in winter that like to burrow under the house and chew on the deck. Sometimes, the only way that I’ve been able to kill a problem brown rat, is to use another brown rat or a ship rat as a lure.
Keep up the good work.
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