It's almost time to make some waxed dirt... or not. Who prefers peat moss or other material over waxed dirt? What kind of dirt is good to wax? I assume something dry and crumbly.

I'm pre sifted peat and dry dirt mixed user. I just never find the time to make the waxed dirt. dry peat and dry dirt works for me

peat moss with cover hulls

Wax dirt or sand here.

peat moss, mixed with dry dirt. have mixed in hulls with it also. i prefer the peat and dry dirt.

Peat......it's a lot cheaper.It also will depend a lot on your soil as for wax dirt.Some soils will really soak the wax up and in order to really "bullet proof" it.....it might take 18-20 ounces of wax to really make it work.If that's the case with your soil type.....it's goona get expensive !!

When Woofman says "it's almost time to make waxed dirt", I have made it with snow on the ground!

I'm with Palerider, the only time I ever waxed dirt it was wayyyy expensive. Plus the Peat hardly weighs anything. I carry just enough dry dirt to cover the top of the trap.

I'm guessing you're just having fun.... Maybe we don't all have three hundred dollar+ cats like they do in Idaho. We used to have two to three hundred dollar otter though. A LOL after sarcasm helps LOL

Sometimes I have to get the shoe polish out just to get enough spots on ours to sale..

The dirt where I'm at REALLY sucks lynx.By the time I've made it bullet proof I'm running more wax than dirt !!!

I have not trapped for ever but I use peat and it works good for me after a few rains I have tripped traps to see, and dust flew. Just my 2 cents

I use dry peat moss...waxed dirt is great..but it's tough to get enough for a rainey season.Lat year in two week, I used just sort of 3 bails.(big bags)

this thread has turned to argueing apples and oranges again too.
I have used a lot of peat moss, zonolite insulation, and waxed dirt. If you live in the south, or where it only gets cold enough to freeeze at night, you can get by with the lighter materials, as it never really gets cold enough to freeze the ground good and hard, usually only less than 1/2 inch of the top soil actually freezes, but if you live where it really gets cold and freezes hard, Freezing the ground a few feet deep, things like peat moss, and zonolite will only work part of the time at the best. Wax dirt will not freeze when prepared correctly.
Yes some soils soak up a lot of wax, and it can be expensive, which is the reason I tell people all the time to mix thier top soil with river washed sand to stretch the wax farther--the sand particles just coat with wax, where as the humis in topsoils actually soak up a lot of wax.

Mother nature will defeat all these efforts often and produce an ice storm that coats everything with freezing ice. Think she just likes to show who is boss sometimes. lol

I prefer to just have a good freeze that stays there, and use dry dirt, but mother nature rarely complies!

So how about leeching? Any novel ideas to keep the moisture from leeching into your prepared dirt onthe trap bed?

Frost always comes up from the bottom of frozen earth. wax dirt helps that too if you put it under the trap, but after a few days moisture will still come up from bottom and collect on bottom of trap unless an inch or more of waxed dirt is used under the trap. If not experiencing rain mixtures, I usually put a sheet of wax paper on bottom of trap bed, then add wax dirt.

I was playing with peat and it still eventually leeches up and freezes like a clump under the trap. Leeching is a worse problem for me than rain, as when the rain freeze starts in I just ride it out with snares until the weather straightens out.

Slim
do you have problems with greys digging in the peat covered traps? i used peat really hard last year but what i found was that the dang greys would dig down in the peat. i had no problem with coyotes or cats.

i pretty much had to redo all the sets i made using peat to finally catch the diggers i had educated. i was probably the most frustrated i had been since i started dirt trapping.

i am gonna try mixing it with dry dirt to see if that will stop them from digging.

Gray fox eat a lot of vegetable matter, perhaps that was part of the problem, I am not sure. I have used a mixture of peat moss and dry sandy soil here in Georgia with good results and never had grays dig for it. Nothing is perfect all the time, but each area will find different results with different things, experiment with each to see what works best for you is the advice I give to everyone. Besides, learning as we go along is half the fun of trapping.

lol kind of figured that would be the answer. it had to be something with the greys because it didn't bother the coyotes.

Thanks
OST