Thread: Bird Predator Control

Mix plaster of Paris with the peanut butter, makes it go further and will cause extreme constipation usually leading to death to anything that cleans out a tripped trap

Hopefully this doesn't seem a silly question, but can you trap pukekos? Is that legal? Do they ever stray and pop a nosey head into a trap and BAM?

We have a mouse problem at my house. We basically live in the middle of farm land but still close enough to town for food scraps a plenty. I'm interested to set some outdoor traps but needing to be dog safe.

Thinking of making just a few tunnels or box traps.

I also am not adverse to whacking the rabbit family that live in the front hedgerow.


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Hey dougie I could be wrong but am pretty sure if you have a pukeko problem ie "too many of them ransacking duck nests/chicks etc" you can call fish and game and get a special permit to shoot a few!!

Yeah, I asked about that, the guy said he would give me one if they were wrecking the vegetables garden or capping in troughs, but not if they were killing the mallard ducklings. Hmm?

I just wondered if they ever get into traps. We have a few round here but not safe to shoot, they don't really bother me anyway. Just curious if they would go after an egg bait in a rat trap.


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As you say they are very curious. We had one go check out the chook house when we let the ckooks out. When the chooks spotted it they rushed back and attacked it. So I'm sure you would be able to trap them.

Caught this guy today at the duck pond

Haven't had much to report for a while with mostly rats and mice being caught.

Did manage a good one today though.

First blood to the Holden Kill trap, I hadn't had much luck with it set for possums so decided to put it in a box (just so I wouldn't catch the dog) and set it for a cat.
Its had a rabbit leg in it for the couple of weeks and today a cat. Yipee!!

Very little to report Kukuwai - got a flu that has knocked me over for a week or so - but back into it today
At the Park - a month or so back - I changed all my Kness and Gorilla trap lures over to Nara plugs in the hope they would work better in the rain - must be sixty of them in service and got just two rats in about a month - wish I had done more research as I now know others that don’t rate them - they lose their smell too quick in the outside environment - maybe better in commercial buildings - either the rats are all dead or they don’t like Nara
I decided to box a line of ten Kness traps to see if the rats will come in on possum paste - I built ten new trap boxes to put up a boundary line in the bush at the Park - a wall of steel traps with yummy possum paste in nice warm boxes - 30m apart - put them out last Tuesday so will give them a week before I check them - stuff the Nara plugs - I hope possum paste pulls them in
I have put out six new A24s at the Park - been out for a month or more for two lousy rats - I don’t rate chocolate lure even if it is in an ALP - I have changed two over to possum paste a week or so back - checked them today and one kill at one site and two big rats at the other site -so that is five rats on A24s - I will change them all over to possum paste next week - but they don’t do possum paste in an ALP - so will mix them with olive oil so they dribble - I have noticed that most of the chocolate lure gets down to the trigger and glugs up in a ball - so I am not sure that is going to work well for six months unless there is an influx of rats that lick the trigger clean
I am also in the process of covering all my exposed traps with coreflute open ended boxes - a bit flimsy but will keep the rain off the trap and stop the lure from being washed away
I checked about 20 stations today where I have First Strike bait in tea bags on wires in large Philproof ground mounted stations - three new servings of tea bags to date - bloody bags are strewn all around the place - not sure if it is rats or maybe some possums - but they must be feeling sick
Photobucket has got me screwed at present - so I cant do any posts with pictures until I sort out an alternative service provider
Great that you are doing well on predator control Kukuwai - I love the harriers flying over the A24s - they are clever birds

I had a good walk round the Park on Saturday with my wife and dog - pests are getting harder to find so maybe I am getting on top of them - 326 down so far this year
A silly possum wandered into my patch - I have always got ten Sentinels waiting for them - I have been watching Bryan Ritchie’s possum trapping videos - so now changed over to lots more flour and icing sugar blaze up the trees under the traps - this possum liked it -



I checked about thirty rat traps - but got just one rat that tried out a “Designed2Kill” box that I was gifted by a supplier - it has a Gorilla trap in it - the rat made a very poor entry to the trap and it got him across the back - I don’t think this would be a NAWAC compliant setup - a painful way to die - he even tried to exit the box - the trap got me twice before I got it back in position and set again - a very tight trap position - I am glad I only have one of these boxes - I hate to think how Mum and the Kids would handle one of these if they had one in the back yard - it is very hard to beat a standard wooden tunnel with mesh on both ends
I am also trying a Bryan Ritchie possum lure around both the possum and rat traps - peanut butter, margarine, flour, icing sugar and vegetable oil - looks and smells lovely



Yum yum yum!

Tell us how you get on with that lure time out

How'd the lure go @time out

Hard to be conclusive FL - but the first lot is gone - and the second lot is finished today - two of us are using it at the Park - we have sloshed a lot of the mix around the traps and in the back end of trap boxes - also heaps of flour mix blaze around the trap sites - downside is quite time consuming and going mouldy in the boxes in wet weather - still using possum paste on the trap
It is getting cleaned up by something pretty quickly - outside the trap boxes and kill rates in the boxes have improved a lot particularly along the boundary block where there is no control over the fence
We have got the 2017 numbers up to 343 a few days back - after more than two years with five Doc250s with rabbit bait - we just got our first stoat - in a Snap-E trap - on bloody peanut butter
We are losing a few rat bodies in trap boxes - two of the pictures were 90m apart on a steep track - I suspect it might be a cat or stoat - its too muddy for hedgehogs
I am going to have another cook up tomorrow - a possum trapper Mate has got me a 10kg box of outdated freeze dried fruit pieces - human food grade - I will mix it with peanut butter/margarine etc - the possum guys are scattering it in the flour blaze round traps and reckon possums love it - well I do anyway
We try to catch rats using a bit of lure on a trap and hope that a rat will get interested enough to stop and have a feed - I reckon I must increase my chances significantly with a heap of lure around the trap site - homemade lure is cheap when you consider the time involved in running trap lines - I burn up three to four hours each trip now - I want results - increased kill numbers or the job under control

@time out good job on the stoat, peanut butter

Same thing is happening here with the wet and mouldy boxes, bit hard to avoid it seems at this time of the year.

I reckon its ants cleaning up my GN possum paste, its not rain as all of my traps are in boxes, the paste isn't lasting long - only a couple of days.
I seem to be finding ants everywhere at the moment, inside plant covers, trap boxes, rotten logs etc.

One thing I did try the other day was just a piece of apple in a few of the boxes, I've got one of those possum masters and the rats keep eating the apple in it b4 a possum comes along.
Maybe it wont get so mouldy... we will see.

Would be really interesting to know what was getting those rats, I've seen a few like that also.
You got a spare timms you can put up there with a rabbit leg !?!

Keep up the good work always enjoy your posts.

My most prolific rat kill sites round the farm are Snap traps on post stays - leave them open or cover them to prevent bird strike
When a rat gets snapped on a stay - he gets really pissed off - and it runs down the stay - next time a rat or a stoat walks past - he will go up the stay to check out that delicious smell - sweeten up his experience with some Goodnature “Possum Paste”, Connovation “Smooth in a Tube” or Peanut Butter, stoats seem to like them all on the trap - Possum Paste is best in wet conditions as it won’t go mouldy
I got a rat on a stay last Wednesday and it had been chewed - maybe rat eating rat? - but on Saturday I got a stoat on the same stay - so maybe he or his family had been chewing out the rat
I had to cut off his tail to make him look bigger @Dundee - I didn’t know they made them this small - but I will take them any size