Thread: Bird Predator Control

Nice cage @sore head stoat – made in USA - they last better and work better than those Chinese ones
Best results I had with a cage is wrapping it in black polythene under a hedge – some rubbish on top – a dry black box seems to attract both cats and ferrets – keeps them warm until you get there – some old carpet or a large sack would be fine
Best bait for cats or ferrets has to be fresh rabbit – but even rotten rabbit will get them – other bait options that work well for cats is Whiskers fish flavour cat sachet –– or just plain sardines in a tin – ferrets love sardines

Thanks Kukuwai
The pic was taken off the short video, which I didn't find easy on the phone.
Camera's doing the monitoring has always made sense as to what's really happening in a given area and of course the time stamp.
KH

Originally Posted by kukuwai

Here are a few that spring to mind

1. Cover the floor of the cage and the trigger plate with a good layer of stuff that matches the area. Have used grass, sand, beach mulch leaves.



2. I have cameras on some cages & sometimes encounter a cat hesitant to enter the cage. What can encourage them is to turn the cage into a tunnel, ie open ends. Have used a sack, an old rug, scrub etc. I remember @time out posting a photo of him using black plastic once which i thought was a good idea especially in wet areas

3. Make sure there are no twigs or small seeding plants in the arc of the swinging door when it closes. I lost one in the early days of cage trapping. Got it on film. Bloody coprosma robusta seedling stoped the door closing tight. Cat was out straight away !!

4.They always make a mistake at some stage..... & come in all colours and sizes




@Kiwi-Hunter those pictures above fully illustrate the value of a camera. Great shots mate thanks for posting, we are all about the birds round here. I love that stuff

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Arrrr come on @kukuwai we all can clearly see that you caught just the one white cat………the coloured it in with that vivid

I've been trialing the new ceramic lures for the last 3 weeks put 20 out and got nothing, so I put in the trusty ole mustelid glands and
got a stoat. Also, I've built a new kind of trap using fibrolite for the door and a Victor rat trap for the trigger I put it in the orchard
caught a rat 1st night 3 rats the next night, and 2 two rats the night after, then got a cat all live catch. since then the blackbirds keep
getting caught will have to set it after dark the bait has been a rotten avocado.

Have tried to put up a link to the article but it has been taken down - a lady in lower North Island caught ten stoats in one trap in one day. She was mucking around with the horses and saw a stoat so set a "trapinator trap". A while later while walking past noticed she had one so went to empty the trap and another ran out of the trap, it had been eating the caught one. Soon after she went past and noticed she had caught another and it was also half eaten. Eventually over the course of the day she had caught ten, she did say that one was bigger than the rest [it was hard to tell from the photo] so maybe a mum with a large litter. They may have been hungry as mum may have been struggling to feed such a large litter but it does prove that stoats will eat stoats, even there mum?, so i guess they would eat weasels under some circumstances which kinda answers the question i had asked earlier on.

I have just spent a few hours with the youngest lad sorting out the trapline.

Since its been a bit quiet on here lately I thought id give you an update.

We have had an abnormal amount of rain around here lately so plenty of mouldy baits and slimy messes to clean up...o the joy's of trapping

Gave all the boxes a good scrape out, traps a grease up and fresh bait



We were rewarded for our efforts with all the usual suspects, left this one on top or the trap, i can almost assure you it won't be there next time.



Never underestimate the power of the $6 victor pro or the ability of a hedgehog to get thru a small hole.



And one for the freezer even if it was on the way out !!



Was out of possum paste so ordered some last week. Very disappointed to only be able to get the small size pac, won't take long to finish that up !!



One interesting thing that happened today was we spooked a kahu off the track in front of us. Turns out he was eating a rat !! He was only 4-5m from one of our traps. That trap was set off with some fresh looking rat fluff in it so I reckon he stole it out of the trap. Clever bugger !!

How are the rest of you getting on ??
@time out @sore head stoat @Kiwi-Hunter @BillyXmas546 @Sparrow (u still doing the trap line or too busy with the new biso)

Hope you are all going good

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Hi kukuwai, With your fishing posts I am surprised you have time to check traps LOL. Enjoy your posts. Well done on your captures.

I am going to check my high country traps lines monday and tuesday and will have a fish while I am up there. I will report in but I expect a few manky captures
Trapping has been slow locally with mainly juvenile hhogs being caught although I did get 2 weasels locally last month.

Yeah @kukuwai , had to give up my lines got very time poor very quickly, but another volunteer has taken them over, still have a couple round the mai mai, and do a few possums occasionally. Keep at it fellas

My high country lines produced 12 mustelids, 3 rats and a few to many hhogs which I hate with a passion because they go manky in the summer heat so quickly. All were in various states of decomposition due to not being able to check them for a month Interestingly my catch of weasels is usually 20% of the mustelid catch, this time it was 8 weasels and 4 stoats. Will check again in 2 weeks, fingers crossed.

Great to hear from you Guys - @kukuwai – no doubt that the Victor Pro traps just keep on killing even as they rust – but I took all of them out of the Park and replaced them with Kness Snap-e traps – the trapping team were not happy with the Victors and don’t complain about the Snap-e traps - although I keep finding filthy broken ones in the trap cupboard waiting for a sucker to clean and repair the triggers – which still keep breaking
I injured an abductor muscle about six weeks ago doing a careless lift and run – so having some time out from the Park – first time back this morning doing some easy stuff and shifting three doc200s that is put in one place for some kittens – fortunately my wife just took over my lines, she checks all the traps on my lines every week – she has accounted for 33 victims so far this year (4 rats and 2 hogs yesterday) also taken a couple of possums out of Sentinels. No cats on my lines at present, so she just has to put some fresh rabbit in the Steve Allen and a Possum master setup for cats and top up all the doc200s – all with fresh rabbit
Its hard to believe that a couple of years ago we would have had about 200 predators by this time in February – total to date this year is 2 possums, 35 rats and 17 hogs from around 200 traps
Don’t you just love cleaning up hogs after they have been in a doc200/250 for close to a week – Yuk! The reduction in hog numbers is showing up in a continually increasing Quail population – but Quail make an easy feed for cats when they turn up
I continue to check a few old Victor Pro traps around the edge of our subdivision – switching from peanut butter mix to Possum Paste now and again – the lure change to possum paste is almost always a winner – they are suckers for a change in lure – four young rats in the last few days
Most of my recent trapping success has been on the back lawn catching bloody rabbits - they visit at night and dig and shit all over the lawn – but sometimes they walk through my tunnel and step on a trusty old Fenn6. The Fenn6 just keeps on keeping on. I get a rabbit every two or three days. I have a box full of chopped up rabbit bodies in the freezer for the doc traps at the Park. The residents round the street seem happy to breed rabbits and have them on their lawns - but they move around and often make a mistake at my place. I find it a lot easier to get a head shot in the Fenn6 than using the air rifle – but I had to take a knife to one this morning
Amazing work on your high-country lines @sore head stoat – well done!

Brilliant post time out.

I think ? you once mentioned a trapping mate around Palmy Nth that wouldnt set a trap without rabbit skin ? I reckon he may be onto something. Rabbit skin with a bit of fat on the skin retains i believe quite a bit of smell imo.

It wasnt that good a result on my high country lines , they should of been checked 2 weeks ago but I blame that bloody kukuwai as him and his Nelson mates keep showing snapper photos and I have been side tracked trying to catch snapper in Pelorus sound... not very successfully LOL

Sorry about that @sore head stoat but all going well I am hoping to get a few more of those snaps the day after tomorrow, ill make sure i post up some pictures

I 100% Agree that post above was an excellent read @time out, however most of you posts are !!

Hopefully that abductor muscle comes right soon and you can unleash the freezer full of rabbit on your park

Great to hear from you guys, its an awesome thread this one so we must keep up with the posts on it !!

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Originally Posted by kukuwai

Sorry about that @sore head stoat but all going well I am hoping to get a few more of those snaps the day after tomorrow, ill make sure i post up some pictures

I 100% Agree that post above was an excellent read @time out, however most of you posts are !!

Hopefully that abductor muscle comes right soon and you can unleash the freezer full of rabbit on your park



Great to hear from you guys, its an awesome thread this one so we must keep up with the posts on it !!

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Bastard LOL

Yip its a great thread

Put out a few ink cards last week with my youngest. He heard about them at school and was super keen to try them in our wetland so i got some.

We used different bait for them all, some saw more traffic than others it was a very interesting exercise





We replaced them with fresh cards today

Heaps of rats and one more weasel tail in the freezer from today's round !!

GN possum paste (deployed last week) was a winner on the rats @time out

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Interesting prints on the ink cards @kukuwai – great for the kids to suss out what predators are around – what is the one with the big feet?
But it’s only when they put their foot on the trap plate that matters – then the kids will get excited
We always use the small GN possum paste tubes – they are so easy to manage and squeeze out a little lure in the trap cup – we use in excess of a hundred each year
Of all the products that GN manufacture – possum paste is one of the best – but they won’t print – For Possums and Rats on the tube – they keep promoting the chocolate stuff as Rat lure
When the Rat lure first came out – they sent me a box of tubes to try out – our kill rate went from about twenty a week to just a couple a week – so we reverted to possum paste and got the good numbers again
Rats are back on peanut butter around my street line and seem to be enjoying it – I got mother rat and seven young ones in one box – probably the whole family - one each day
My wife is still holding the place together at the Park – she is also doing the east block now as my Mate has got covid and is out of action.