Just kind of curious about a couple of things.
What populaton area do you cover?
A rough number of cage traps, gopher traps etc. do you have avaliable to use as needed?
What type of animal is your most often call?
Thanks

the answer to all of these questions are location structured. for me the majority of my work is bats and moles and gophers. i have a few hundred mole and gopher traps.. only 25 cage traps maybe? not sure i just got a few more. the area that i cover is about 100,000 people in a 60 mile radius from my home. i go out of state if the numbers are right. The best thing i did this year just starting was buying things as needed when the jobs came up, that way i didnt have to take out a loan or borrow from a friend. now that i have gotten mostly all species of calls i have almost everything i need... minus a new truck but am working on that. PM and ill give you more tips for just starting out without spending money but furthering your company. again im fairly GREEN in this business but have got a lot of the basics down.

Jordan, now may be an excellent time to purchase a new vehicle. Trucks are a little small for all the stuff we carry, so we used full sized vans.
We just bought a 2008 Ford for 16 grand. It has 7000 miles on it and all the power extras. I'm sure the dealer made 4 grand and we saved at least 12 buying a used vehicle.
If you're going to buy a pick-up, I would suggest either a very low mileage used one or a 2009 new one. There's 3000 cash back.

thank you for the advice. noted.. i have been looking at brand new trucks and used ones as well. My grand plan is to have it vinyl wrapped with my professional designs bats, moles, gophers etc.. ladder rack and topper... still havent found the magic one yet

9 counties on moles.
5-6 on larger animals.

5 full time wildlife techs mainly one county. and im with bud buy it as you need it no matter how big you are

Where in NM are you?

You may need a lot of snake traps out there depending on where you are!

Contact a franchise organization. They will usually look to sign you up with a "package" and part of the franchise fee would be equiptment. They should provide with a list, not that you would need all of it to get started.

I was looking a Critter Control a while back.

>>>>>>>>

Greg. I'm in the mountains near Alamogordo. Not much call for snake removal in the mountain area but from talking with folks it is needed in the valley area.
Most of my current calles are for skunks, coons, coyotes and bats.
As this is my slow time of the year (I'm off work for awhile due to an injury) I'm trying to get all of the research done and putting together a business plan on paper to have a couple of folks look at.
Thanks for any other ideas and thoughts folks might have.

I have been a full time wco quite a long time now (16yrs.as of Oct.23 of this year) and over time you seem to aquire a lot of stuff. I have around 1400 traps if you count cage traps of variying sizes, snares, body grippers of varies sizes, mole and gopher traps, tube traps, vole traps, pigeon traps, etc.etc. But having said that, having at least some knowledge of construction and the ability to work with the public and having a realistic business plan is just as important as having a ton of equipment. As I'am sure most everyone else did here you start out with what you can afford and keep adding as you grow. Oh yes,I cover two counties.

Bob