I have been trapping coons at our co-op with DPs and cages have got quite a few in the last month but the last 2 week they just walk by my traps tried switching baits. every thing from cat food with liquid smoke to marshmallows' jelly to some commercial bait souerdens macro you name it I have tried it traps have been in the same place any help will be greatly appreciated. thanks

Rebuild the coop to keep them out. Otherwise, they will keep coming. It will be less effort.

Besides dig fence and making the fence with a predator shield at the top.

It might be a lost effort out there, but it can be effective to remove the animals. Steven vantassel had a good segment about removing animals for long term effect.

Its not all about bait, they obviously have food, and don't want yours. You need to try a new location, any other location.

Can you use double doors where they are getting in? Its hard to know what would work, but I just started drift fencing and it is a real game changer. if you know where they are coming from you may want to try and trap a little farther from the coop to pick them up before they become only focused on the coop.

Too many people focus on bait, it plays a role, but if you try ten baits in the same cage, at the same spot, and none of them work, why will the eleventh bait work? It might, but its probably a coincidence. Change the spot. WHY did you put it there? WHY might somewhere else work.

Go back to basics and pretend you are training some who has never even considered trapping, and they ask "Why?" all the time. "Why are you putting it there?" "Why are we using x bait" "why this type of trap?"

Blind set their trails in.

We have had good luck this year with electric fence. The best way to protect them is to lock them up at night, our electric fence is for daylight hours, we lock them up in a tight chicken house each night.

Try honey in your DP trap with the cat food, and honey with the small marshmallows in DP trap. Leave a few leading to DP with small amount of honey on them. Get out in woods or fields that surround you and trap there.

Kurt temple

Ok this was my bad its not a chicken coop its the county CO-OP they store the corn in bags on the ground there is vary little area around them I have to work with and its gravel I thought about footholds but the gravel.

change your baiting strategy.

They are storing bagged feed outdoors at night or indoors and raccoon are accessing it?

its out side the silos are full

Maybe Kansas coons are different but I rarely, if ever, have a coon pass up a cage with canned dog or cat food in it to get at some old dried corn.

This is how they are keeping it and what im trying to protect.

Looks about like trying to protect the cornfield from the whole local population of raccoon, rats, mice....

How much loss are they having, just out curious?

I remember a dairy farmer with sever gull depredation on his open silage bins in OR.

Said he was losing about $15k a month and wanted the gulls gone by any means necessary.

One thing suggested to him was a roll down automatic door that would have provided as close to 100%
effective barrier as he could get.

His response was "nah, that's too much money...."

Yes the door was I believe $5k and he had this issue all growing season and parts of the fall as well.....

I grew up on a farm so I know the mentality is often lets do this which costs less and not give ourselves a long term solution.

Not sure why better storage would run these folks in your example, maybe on a year when they don't have as much commodity it
wouldn't pay off, seems though to be begging for some adds infrastructure, aside from you trying to remove the masked bandits having their fill of the easy pickings.

they are paying good money for each one I get I know its a battle but with coon prices im coming out better then a lot of people they are paying me $20 a coon so im trying my hardest to help them I know its going to be a never ending battle but the challenge is fun and flustratting at the same time.

Hey Justin, I'm kind of glad I grew up on a farm too and my dad sure loved has cattle. But not enough to get killed while defending a

lunatic bull from police officers. It sounds like the farmer was well off and could have bought another bull and had a nice tax

deduction for this year as well. Any of you Idaho guys got an comment on this crazy story?

Either I am getting old and dizzy or something is wrong with what I am seeing. Maybe someone can fix those photos or give me some Dramamine.

I am surprised Kansas farmers or ranchers are willing to pay for coon removal. They are quite resourceful folks. Glad you are able to make it pay. Hopefully they are close to you or the gas and travel will eat your profit.

Here you go Bob

Phew, Thank you bic. I knew I am getting old but I almost lost my dinner after looking at those for a few seconds..

I would catch a lot of coon around those Silage bags, round bale storage areas and grain bins when I trapped Kansas. I was targeting cats but had to clean the coons out first. I got a buddy in Lincolnville, Marion county that could probably help you out, not sure how far you are from his location.

He is a coon and skunk catching professional. They call him the KansasSkunkman.

For me I would find the access trails to and from the problem area and gang set it. Once on site close to the silage area their focus turns toward that primary food interest.

Back track their route of access and Target them before entering the feed zone. Trail setting and blending your sets or traps better should improve your results considerably. It sounds like a conditioned refusal to me so change what they see and throw ground cover onto the bottom wire grid so they cant feel the wire.

Get some of that plastic silage bag waste material or discarded cut off material and wad a bunch in the back of your traps and drape some over the tops of your traps. There should be lots of that laying around or ask where they dump the waste material.

Should be a no brainer to find the trails. If you can't determine that, set up a couple trail cams to get your info and see what they are doing in response to your set ups.

I am with Bob, but I would pre-bait some before they get to the feed area or my trap. You can tell a lot about what is going on by pre-baiting. JMO

I would do trails but I only got were the bags are to the tree line is the property line. the nice thing about the job is its right on the edge of town a block and a half from the gas station I go to every morning any how that is why I am doing it. I tried switching stuff up tonight covered the cage traps and moved the dog proofs around hoping it will help I also put some 220s were the bags funnel them down we will see what tomorrow brings. thanks for all the advice I love when I run into problems I feel it makes me a better trapper by learning more all the time.

thanks for the help guys checked this morning and had 4 big boars this morning

Bob has got it! When critters have a destination in mind, especially if the destination is plentiful food, there's no turning them to bait. Intercept them on the travel route is the high percent option at this time. To up the odds even more look for your bottlenecks that force them right into your traps.

I recently tried pre baiting . It exceeded my expectations by a huge margin . In the past I didn't want to take the time and gas to go through a pre baiting process. Was I ever wrong ! There must be a lot of food that can out compete silage. In my recent experience I have never had so many animals doing their best to enter my cage traps ever . Give pre baiting a try. What have you got to loose ?

I find all of your posts incredibly interesting. We probably catch more raccoons than most of you and that sure doesn't seem to make

us the least bit helpful. Our raccoons could be going to a dumpster full of seafood from Red Lobster and they would all get

caught on the way in cages baited with nothing but fresh dirt! Our raccoons have a bottomless pit and investigate anything and

everything that could possibly be construed as food. Yeah, the lactating females are hard to catch. Mother Nature makes 'em that way

to protect the young. But as soon as they are able to follow mom, you can catch her and the whole litter at one time if you set

enough cages. I had a job this summer ( actually every summer ) keeping the raccoons from eating the food from the swan feeder on

this island. Now the raccoons really love this swan food. I set one cage about 20 feet from the feeder and bait it with whatever

I'm using that day. (Marshmallows, cat food, dog food, you name it) I caught 31 raccoons there this summer and I'm sure some of

them were full of swan food. Like I said, they're bottomless pits!

Prebaiting....genius....

I would go to the trails as others suggest. Perhaps a larger double door cage to give confidence if they are shy metal.

Always do well with bacon grease or cheap barbecue sauce

Don't know what you have for pets there, but a couple of times on chucks I planted 1 3/4 northwoods at the den, no bait, lure of course. Got the chucks, no non targets. I don't get many calls for predators but do use steel in trails when required.