Porcupines

Hello All,

I have a client that has a porker eating her crab tree. What is a good bait for porkers and what is a good set? The only set I have used to trap porkers was a den set in winter. I tracked them back to the den and set a trap in front of the entrance.

A clump of hemlock tied to the back of cage as visual....on a paper plate ..cut up carrots and apples in a pile of salt ..hang half over the back of the pan ...with salted apples leading in...

trail set

wait for it with a six foot stick. club it on the head. Pull out the quills and cut up the meat. Cook and eat up.

Haven't tried it but I've heard bacon grease works well. Always preferred a .22 about 15min before dark where the trail comes out of the pines.

Hiawatha predator bait works too... i just set up a quill-pig job today.. she has 3 of the rats eating her deck last night.. i asked why she didnt call me last night and i would have ended the problem than... set 3 cages out today... 2 under the decks where they are eating the stairs.. one on a trail leading to the deck.. salted apples with a paper plate in the back of the cage... use a big cage.. porky i found do not like to be crowded in a cage.

Any luck? In the mean time, wrap the tree with fencing material.

If you are talking a few trees that need protecting and the lower limbs are high enough to allow it you can completely wrap the tree with smooth galvanized metal 24" is usually tall enough. Spray paint it to match or at least blend in to the bark. Might sound odd, but I can tell you I've got more clients than anyone would care to pass up where this was totally effective and worth their investment.

All of these folks have paid for removal in the past and sure enough eventually they get another one and the trees get hammered before the guy is out there to start trapping again.

Just thought I'd throw it out there, these are high end homes as well, not folks who want to see ugly in their yard, so when I say the metal blends, it blends. Can use pop rivets to seal the metal sleeve.

First one we did I put a camera on it, after two nights the local porcupines stopped trying as they couldn't climb this slippery tree!



Justin

That's working smarter not harder! Do they hire you back to cut the sleeve off before it kills the growing tree or is that far enough down the road it doesn't come up?

They do, but we make the initial sleeves with 1-2" of gap for growth.

The first client we did this for was getting hit yearly before she called.

We tried live trapping a few days but no luck.

So we looked at the problem (damaged trees) and realized what she needed was to
protect the 6 trees (2" diameter locust saplings).

She loved it, others that call me now we offer the same. Have done yards with 15-20+
trees anywhere up to mature cottonwoods.

Will try to post a pic later. The immediate growth and recovery of the tree makes for happy
clients! Metal is cheap as is the spray paint and rivets.

The first ones we did we're stove pipe sleeve with the locking groove. Now we use
large rolls of coil.

on the porky job i just did i took 6 porkies in 7 day using my combo bait.. thats a record for me. 2 in one night, than singles the following nights. she didnt want to pay anymore so i pulled the traps..