Live Traps

[7br]

One of the things I do is to put a large, black plastic garbage bag over the trap. Helps when you get a skunk.

[MaryB]

Skunks get shot, I wear gloves and double garbage bag them and into the can to be picked up. Got 7 last summer because we had a bumper crop of them. Several probably had rabies the way they acted when I saw them in daylight. One charged me and I didn't think, I grabbed the PK380 from my pocket and shot it... with a hollow point... yeah never do that again!

[Greg S]

Mary B, hindsight is 15/15 (crystal clear).

My sister had a problem with a brewd of coons. Mama attacked and tore up a very friendly and overcurious great dane. Not the sight you want to see, 180lbs male pussey screaming and running away. Anyhow, she was trapping an awful lot of coons and releasing them in the park up the street to learn that they would just return home. As Country Gent said, SSS.

[richhodg66]

Nothing in the trap this morning. The past couple f nights have gotten way down in the low single digits, pretty cold for here even in January, hence teh reason the outside cat is locked up til it warms up a bit again. I wonder if that possum is just holed up and trying to stay warm too?

[Boaz]

Yep .

[skeettx]

Good luck and it you REALLY want to catch it use Tuna Fish
Mike

[Chihuahua Floyd]

A wildlife biologist I know will only release an animal he live traps if he can release it within a few feet of where it was trapped. the potential for disease and other bad things is to high to release away fro where an animal is caught.
I grew up in the country on the longest dirt road in the county. It was bad enough having to put down a few feral dogs and cats every year. Don't need extra possums and coons.
I live in town, I catch a possum it gets shot and dumped in the National Park for the yotes and hogs to fight over.

[quilbilly]

I've given some thought to what I'll do when I catch him. Strangely, the wife said I should just shoot it, but it seems the older I get, the less inclined I am to kill anything without a real good reason (eating something is a good reason). I kind of have a hard time shooting something for doing what comes natural to it, I may just throw the trap in the truck and drive it out further and release it unless I do decide to try eating a possum again.


I've grown fond of that cat real fast, our other ones are exclusively indoors, so it's nice to have a guy who follows around while I'm doing stuff outside and in the barn, almost like a dog. Something scratched him up a little a week or so back, drew a little blood on his noce and both ears, might have been this possum. He's had his shots, but I want to take care of this before something worse may happen.

I know what you mean. Anymore I hate to kill things I don't intend to eat but I do make an exception for coyotes.

[higgins]

Last year we had something eating our cats' food in our semi-rural barn. I asked around about what I could bait a live trap with that our cats wouldn't be attracted to, and a raw egg was suggested. That was news to me. The first egg caught our not-too-bright cat who got curious and caught himself. After he learned his lesson (the other cat never went into the trap), I reset the trap with another egg for bait and caught the 'possum within a couple of hours.

[richhodg66]

This cat seems to be pretty smart, he does his prowling during the day and hangs close to the outside lights during the dark hours most of the time. I think he understands how dangerous coyotes are (haven't seen any on the property, but I hear them and know they are close). This is the main reason cat food is out after dark. It might be worth a try to get something and try to bait it with that doesn't attract a cat.

This cat was pretty thin when he showed up, but has muscled up nicely since then. He's a big, strong cat who is still intact and has claws, I'd think he could fight off a possum, but he's such a big baby I don't think he has a shred of aggression or fight in him, he loves everybody and everything he meets so far. I'll keep trying to catch this one. May start keeping a .22 by the front door too.

[chutesnreloads]

Think the only thing a possum fights is MAYBE another possum over a female.They're NOT aggressive even though they will occasionally act so until their bluff is called.They're about as dumb as animals come.If your catching multiple possums check and see if you're not catching the same one or two over and over.If you just release them you're likely to catch the same one every night until you get rid of it.I've caught possums in a trap with no bait in it but had possum poop from the night before.They also tend to wander and if left alone after a while will move on someplace else.Don't leave anything out to attract them and the problem likely will solve itself.

[Down South]

If your catching multiple possums check and see if you're not catching the same one or two over and over.If you just release them you're likely to catch the same one every night until you get rid of it.

LOL, Paint their tail Florescent Orange, hehe...

[Plate plinker]

If you keep horses possum piss can kill a horse.

They carry a bacteria. Friend lost a horse that way.

[bear67]

My wife has taught and now is director at an outdoor education center where 1800 fifth grade students each year spend 3 days and two nights learning science, history and time in the outdoors. They use live traps and peanut butter on bread to trap coons as a regular activity. They release the coons and it becomes a habit for some of these guys to get trapped, eat and get out in the early am to sleep.

Only one night a few years back, they went to check a trap and it contained both a racoon and an upset skunk. She said that was one really be--draggled skunk. I don't remember how they got them out, but when we live trap skunks as we did in the hay barn last week, we throw a sheet over the trap and drop in a farm pond or the lake with a rope on the trap. After an appropriate wait, open trap and use carcass to feed fish.

[ksfowler166]

You do realize what you are doing is illegal, I am assuming you do not have a 2016 furharvesters license or that you are in a city which would require you to have a ADC permit. I know a guy who got a visit from his states game wardens for shooting squirrels in his back yard with a license and mentioning it in a youtube video of his. Might want to rethink writing posts that incriminate you.

On the more helpful side possums are stupid I have had one walk close even in front of mean while I was coyote hunting that I probably could have hit it with my shotgun. It never gave any indication I was there. Also most trappers have the problem of catching possums even when they don't want to.

[richhodg66]

I do have a fur havesters permit, every new year's eve I go buy a hunt/fish combo and the fur harveters just so I have all bases covered.

Haven't had a visit from Mr. Possum for a while now. The weather has ben pretty bad, I wonder if that has something to do with it.

[Fishman]

Our outside cat was one who showed up and adopted us. He stayed for 11 years and did all the cool stuff you talk about and more. He got old eventually and died in his sleep on our porch. Since then I have realized how much work he actually did! Cleaning the garage last week and mouse poop everywhere! The only mice I ever saw before this were getting eaten by the cat!

BTW, my daughter named him Mrs. Norris after the cat in Harry Potter. Then she found out the cat was a he. So his name was changed to Chuck Norris, Norris for short. As a practical thing I tolerate cats because my wife likes the one in the house. But I'm not ashamed to admit I miss that old cat. Sweeping mouse poo is no fun! Lol.

[gwpercle]

Possum's would ride the short bus to school. Not hard to catch, be careful where you put your fingers, they got teeth. My favorite method of disposal is to have a friend who's wife knows how to properly preare and bake them with sweet tater's. Or take them for a long ride and let them go.
Somebody posted something about fur....I don't want to even think about how nappy a possum skin coat would look. Look honey I bought you a new Possum Fur coat for Christmas.....Oh Yeah ! that's going to be a great gift.

One thing I can say about them and cats is our 3 cats don't mess with them , the possums walk all around, where ever they want and the cats just look at them, the cats don't attack them or fight with them.
Gary

[Jeffrey]

My first dealing with a possum: A friend put a leghold trap off a trail at our hunting lease. Walking back from deer stand, I see a live possum by the trap (not in it) with a bleeding ear. Possum looks at me, walks off. Back at camp I mention live possum. Friend says "What do you mean "walked off". Me: Yeah, he had a bleeding ear, but it walked off. Friend: His ear was bleeding because I shot it in the head. Me: Must have missed its brain. True story. Recently I repaired some wiring on the electric fence around my chickens' coop. Following morning I found stunned possum standing by fence, nose still touching wire. Figuring its brain was pretty well fried, I finished the job with a .22. IMHO, possums not too smart.

[Ballistics in Scotland]

I don't know about possums, but rats, which are probably a lot brighter, don't avoid traps because they know a trap. They avoid it because it is something new. So unless you can devise one that looks familiar (e.g. a box where you keep boxes), keep trying and he will probably lose his caution.

This is the mouse that ate through my stock of UHT milk cartons for all of a long, hot summer break in Saudi Arabia, and on top of a lot of paperwork in my desk, at that. I caught him in a live trap, but I didn't tell my merry little bunch of Bedouin that, and I heard them saying "W'allah, very fast for an old man!"



I paroled him in a rubbish dumpster a long way off, near the post office. There is food in the rubbish anywhere Saudis get together, but less cats than you would get outside a restaurant. I certainly didn't want him dead, for I had won, and once is enough. Of course he might have got crushed in the landfill, but when you are a varmint, you must take your chance.