Hi!
I was wondering if anyone set two A24s one with the rat lure and the other with the stoats lure next to each other and successfully got both species? Or should they be separate? The traps would be located in a native forest 10 m from a house.
Cheers
The traps should be spaced at least 50m apart to give you good coverage, but it depends on where you can place them. I would recommend placing one in the bush, and the other one relatively close to your house. Even though your place is close to the bush, don’t underestimate the amount of traffic that an A24 attached to a shed, for example, could receive. I live on a property surrounded by mature bush, with traps inside it, but the traps I have inside, or near to, buildings kill far more pests. If there is an old shed close to the bush, an A24 inside it could rack up the kills, including mustelids, because they’ll be hunting the rodents using it. A good nesting site is probably a more powerful lure than any food you could use as bait, and there is a constant supply of rats competing to take over the nest of the one you’ve just trapped.
In the bush, make sure that the A24 is 1m above the ground to prevent ground-dwelling birds from interacting with it. Kiwi can stick their beak inside the entrance.
I would only use the stoat lure, because it targets more than just rodents. I have had way better results using it in my A24 compared to the Rat lure, and it’s worked very well in my snap-traps and DOC tunnels, too. I was worried that ship rats wouldn’t be very attracted to the stoat lure, because they prefer fruits and grains, but I was pleasantly-surprised! On top of a workbench in an old shed, I’ve trapped 70+ ship and brown rats in a T-Rex snap-trap, and about 1/2 of the time it was with Stoat Lure.
I used peanut butter but need to be replaced every second day for rats.
How long does the Stoat Lure last?
Goodnature made it to last for 6 months in their auto-traps. The Stoat lure could last that long outside of an auto-trap, but the predators in my neck of the woods like it too much for it to last anywhere near that long.
It will last longer than conventional baits, like peanut butter, because it doesn’t rot or go stale, it’s waterproof, takes a long time to grow mold, and insects and invertebrates don’t eat it. FYI, humans can’t smell it, so it’s not a bad batch!
I had a huge spike in kills when I first used it in my snap traps, so I recommend checking them daily for the 1st week, if you can. It’s also really good in DOC tunnels and I’ve trapped feral cats with it, too, smearing some on the bait in my Timms traps and cages.