# Self Sufficiency/Living off the Land or Off the Grid > Hunting & Trapping >  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.

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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.

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## 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.

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## beerrunner13

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## klkak

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

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## 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.

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## 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.

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## 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

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## 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. :Big Grin:  

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.

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## 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

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## 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.

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## 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...

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## Rick

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

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## trax

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

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## grundle

Generally you smell them before you see em haha

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## 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....

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## 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!:

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## 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. :Roll Eyes (Sarcastic):

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## JustPeachy362

I live in the city in an old neighborhood with century old oaks, black walnuts, and pine trees. I own my house and a couple of rentals in my area. The woodwork is aging on these old Vics and the houses are 3 stories high. Squirrels will chew into the facia or soffit and get in, then invite their friends over and party in the wee hours between the ceilings and the floorboards. I get calls from a hysterical tenants. And I have had my own episodes with them waking me up in the middle of the night with gnawing. And of course, there's the worry that they are gnawing more than wood, like electrical wires. 

One time I tried poison, roof rat bait, and it was disappearing faster than I could make trips to Home Depot for more. And I got him, he died...in the walls, I knew not where. I wasn't about to start ripping into the walls. They are old fashioned plaster. I just dealt with the smell of dead animal for about 4 days. Somewhere in the walls of this old Victorian home is a squirrel skeleton. That is definitely not the way to do it.

I hate these things so much, I'll take a rat over a squirrel any day. Rats stay out in the woodpile, like decent folk. They wouldn't dream of climbing up to the third floor of your house. Rats don't steal food from the bird feeder, they are content with what falls to the ground. Not squirrels! those bass turds will make sure they empty the bird feeder...in one hour. I've had bird feeder wars with squirrels. Rats don't go digging in your potted plants, and throw your just purchased annuals all over the porch. Rats have respect, they try to stay out of sight, they run when they see you, they don't try to make friends with the neighbors. 

After catching more squirrels than I care to confess to, I realized nature abhors a city squirrel vacuum. I got exhausted with driving them out to the county to release them, the gas and time involved was piling up. You can't just take them down to the park, oh no, they know all about the park, and the path back home. You gotta take them all the way out past the beltway to keep them from returning. 

Then I read where they don't typically survive reintroduction to a new environment anyway. I felt morally vindicated to put them down. And a park ranger told me to please just "dispose" of them, don't bring them out to the already overpopulated county parks. And apparently moving a grey squirrel from the city to the county is illegal. I could end up down at the Central Booking & Intake Facility. So I had to find a way to do this as humanely and quietly as possible. If anyone saw me killing a squirrel in my neighborhood they would probably call the police and I'd again end up down at the CBIF. 

I read some other suggestions, but there is absolutely no way I would ever be anything but bitten if I reached into that trap and grabbed that squirrel and tried to break its neck. And discharging a firearm in the city is the absolute fastest way to end up at the CBIF, except if you are shooting another person. Not only that, but my luck, I'd hit one of the metal bars and the bullet would ricochet back at me and I'd end up shooting myself, having to go to the hospital, and of course a gunshot wound might entail a trip to..you guessed it, the CBIF. 

So, here's how you do it. You get a trashcan that is tall enough that the entire trap will fit in it. It's a good idea to have said trash can selected, test the height with the trap, and make sure none of the trap will be exposed to air when it is in the can. Because a drowning squirrel is a desperate squirrel and will find that cubic inch of air. Then put the can in a spot where it is close to a hose and out of sight of the neighbors. And fill the can to the very tip top.

Put the trap near the foundation of the house. Bait should be selected "for squirrels only," so you don't end up with a cat. Hopefully the squirrel you catch is the one that has set up housekeeping in your home. You carry the squirrel in the cage to somewhere no one can see it, and talk to the squirrel if anyone is like walking their dog or something. "Hey little fella, you are gonna love it at the animal sanctuary out in the county." (When people in the city see you with a squirrel in a live trap, their eyebrows shoot up above their hairline, and they'll even ask you, suspiciously, what you intend to do with said squirrel. They should only care so much about humans.) You put the trap out of sight and go do some gardening or something, and you wait until it's almost dark and everybody's forgotten about the squirrel. Then you put the whole trap into the can of water with the mouth end of the trap up, making sure there is no nose to air contact. And you go have a beer.

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## hunter63

JustPeachy362
Hunter63 saying Hey and Welcome.
There is a intro section at;
http://www.wilderness-survival.net/f...-Introductions

Interesting post.....sound like a lot of experience......and as a retired service guy working on equipment in attics these things are destruction on the hoof.....
Thank for posting.

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## MikeMwllow

Do you try to check some traps on the ............... Nevermind - I'm just a spammer our of Ukraine.

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