Live Animal Trap

[grundle]

I was wondering what the best way to kill squirrels or rabbits from a live animal trap. I have two of the following traps.

http://www.hardwarestore.com/media/product/505770_front200.jpg

The other day I caught a squirrel in one of them, but I let him go when I couldn't figure a way to kill him quickly. The best I have come up with since then is either spearing the animal somehow, or making a wire noose and trying to suffocate it.

I would really appreciate any ideas y'all come up with. I am trying to avoid sticking my hands in there and getting all clawed up by a riled up bunny just so I can snap its neck.

[klkak]

For the squirl, grab it by the hind legs and the head and give a sharp jerk. For the rabbit, grab it by the hind legs and give it a sharp chop on the back of the neck.

[beerrunner13]

Whats wrong with a .22 and why are you traping them in the first place?

[grundle]

.22 won't work because I am in a residential area and the city people around here get nervous when you have a gun. I already had a neighbor call the fire department on me whe I was burning some fallen tree branches in my back yard. I wish these people would mind their own business.

I am trapping the little guys for several reasons. First I don't want them tearing up my garden and eating all my goodies. I also want to practice gutting, field dressing, skinning, and tanning their tiny little hides. My pop was an avid hunter but never taught me so I am trying to learn and I figure I ought to start small and work my way up.

[Ole WV Coot]

Don't have to worry about rabbits, ever hear of a "rabbit punch"? Their neck is easy to break the way Klkak said. He's right on squirrels also but he didn't mention those suckers are rather toothy and those two front teeth will go thru your hand. Voice of experience or rather inexperience here, the scar is almost gone now.

[klkak]

Oops, sorry that completly slipped my mind. Ummm, ware leather gloves when handling live squirls

[Aurelius95]

Instead of using a live trap, some have posted that they use a rat trap that is nailed to a tree to catch squirrels. Kills them for you... Wouldn't catch a rabbit that way, though.

[Rick]

The point of a live trap is to catch them.....live. Don't use it and you won't have to worry about killing them. Use a snare or a trap as Aurelius said.

By the way, you don't have to bait those things for ground squirrels. Just set it. They are dumb enough to run through it and catch themselves. I have one set on the timbers around my garden and I catch ground squirrels all summer long just by setting the trap.

[grundle]

So what do you do with them once you catch them?

I wish I had thought of a different sort of trap before I bought the silly things >< I am going to have to come up with something..I think I will be getting some leather gloves for one thing :P

[Rick]

Take them far far away and release them. I'd love to ship them out by Fedex but ever since one bit through the box the carrier won't take them.:D

Squirrels won't bother your garden. Rabbits will only bother it while the plants are still sprouts and/or the lettuce. Once the plants get up to a decent size the rabbits won't bother anything. At least they don't around here. The @#$# ground squirrels will dig their way to China if you let them.

[grundle]

I still feel like I need to get some practice cleaning them etc. I'll take some before and after pictures of the animal and my arms just so you guys can get a good laugh if(when?) things go wrong.

The thought of some free meat is another motivator..even if it aint all that much

[trax]

Town I lived in many years ago up north --two guys living next door to each other, just down the road from me apiece, one of them kept over 20 cats. The cats started using the neighbor's woodpile for a cat box, nice huh? Light a fire in your stove and your house is permeated with the wonderful woodland aroma of burning cat pee. So the fella with the woodpile commenced to setting traps around the woodpile. His yard, his woodpile, his traps. Cat owner charged him with some kind of endangerment thing and he had to pull all the traps or pay a fine. Cat owner said his kid might have stepped on one of the traps. His kid was 12, she knew better, plus there was a fence seperating them that the kid would have no business climbing over. The woodpile owner was telling me about it in the coffee shop after the court case. I said, "want one my .22's?" Said he had his own, but I didn't hear any late night pot shots. To my knowledge nothing was done about the cats, but my point (see that skippy? I have a point!) is that using kill traps are often illegal within town limits. You might want to check before you use any other traps.

[grundle]

Aha! Good info trax! I live in a very pc/hippy area so it is very possible that I would look up and see a hippy hanging from my tree branch while judging me for killing a poor defensive woodland creature and sue me for infringing on its rights.

I guess the best death trap will have to be my massive killing physique which has been carefully honed by training tirelessly behind a computer day in and day out. Should I be charged by a rabbit or a squirrel I am fairly certain I would come out on top, but it might be close.

All kidding aside, you bring up some very good points. I'll stick with the live traps for now and hope nobody sees me clubbing them...

[Rick]

Oh....this kid has potential.....

[trax]

Oh yeah, I like that answer. This one's a keeper, ya know ya gotta watch out for hippies dangling from your trees.

[grundle]

Generally you smell them before you see em haha

[trax]

Generally you smell them before you see em haha

Could be a sign they been up there too long, you go right ahead and club them little critters if the neighbor's are giving off "that" aroma....

[Arborius]

I think a pellet or B.B. gun would kill them without a lot of noise but let me tell you a story. Muahahaha. I use to clean carpet and I was out in the country at a clients house and they had 2 hava heart traps in there yard. I checked them out and they had extension cords, hmm. :eek:

[Rick]

I did that once. My neighbor had a dog that liked to roam the neighborhood and get into peoples trash. I had a small fenced in area at one corner of the house where my trash cans sat and he'd just help himself. I took some number 10 ground wire and stripped about three feet of insulation off of it and strung it across the opening and plugged it into one side of 110. I've never seen a dog pee while it ran but that one did. For quite a distance. He never came back.:rolleyes: