Anyone have a good technique to keep ice from building up on squirrel traps mounted to the roof or gutter?

Thanks,

Dirk:
wrap them in sheet metal or waxed cardboard!!

J Pickel

I am cheap,In the winter months I have always made it a practice to slip a walmart shopping bag over each trap or excluder and tie the handles thru the wire where it wont interfere with the trap or excluders function. It protects the lure / bait and the squirrels until removed and keeps the snow and ice from disableing the traps.

Thank you gentlemen.

Both suggestions are practical and feasible!!!!! Not something you always get when you ask for advice.

Though HSUS would recommend a heating tape wrapped around the trap and a hot water bottle in the trap for those cold winter nights.

Dirk:
If you go with the heat tape, don't forget to have some of the wiring
available for the squirrel to chew on lol!!1

Jerry

We cover the back two thirds of our squirrels traps with plastic cardboard and hardware cloth. Takes care of lots of problems including ice!

Trap docks work well Dirk as you can see in soffit picture they also make a nifty mounting shelf. Trap with squirrel comes out and just slide fresh trap in. Can get them from Alan/WCS.

Good question Dirk. I don't have many ice-up issues here in Southeast VA, but do use the trap docks (about 3 doz) year round. Keeps the bait/lure from being washed away in rain or dried out by the sun. Keeps critters out of the blistering sun, and decreases their chances of hypothermia during frigid rains. When we get freezing temps here I'll add a layer of fiberglass insulation on the bottom of cage to keep their feet off the cold cage bottom to increase suvivability.
Only problem is, the door section isn't covered by the dock, which I think might be part of the reason for your post...freeze-up on the action part of the trap. Since I don't get the weather to test it out, I can only suggest trying a silicone spray for the moving parts (door assembly and treadle arm). Not sure what the critter response would be to the smell or if it would wear off quickly in heavy precipitation conditions.

Roofing Felt Works Great, can be put only on Top, or all the Way around the Trap.

Charles,

Those trap docks look Sweeeeeet. Are they the ones that Jason Reger developed?


330Trapper, being from MN I am sure you deal with a LOT of icing and snow,so I know the roof felt must work as well.

Thanks a lot!!!!

I'll chime in for Charles, yes they are. I have a few of the prototypes and actually, there are features on them that I like that aren't on the full production model. But I'm fortunate to have both, so I use one or the other for the particular setup in which it would be best utilized. They really do make trap swapping very quick. Out with the full trap, in with the empty, freshly baited one. And it goes about as fast as it took me to type that last sentence (as 60wpm). My 15 minutes of fame include the fact that my traps are the ones pictured in the WCS website advertising the trap docks.

The cages look great. My question is; when or why do you feel it is necessary to take those trap docks off? Ours are permanently wrapped with plastic and it keeps at least some of the snow and wind out of the cage in winter and hot sun out in summer.

Good lord, why do you think they make roofing shingles for ?
Surely not houses....LOL

Paul Docks stay in place until job is closed and as Kevin said just pull out trap with catch and slide in a baited trap. Instead of having a cover for each trap a trap dock allows any trap slid into it to be covered.

Dirk they work great and our biggest issue here isn't freezing rain it is snow melt during day and freeze up at night that results in frozen traps in morning. Docks stop that 100%. I think they look much more professional to customers than some of the other methods I have used, really shine in high profile set ups, work year around and keep catch out of sight.