I've been doing adc for a few years now but I'm always looking for ways to comeplete jobs more quickly. The less time spent at a job and less trips to the job mean more money for me. How do some of you go about accomplishing this. For example, you get a call that is 60 miles round trip for raccoons in the attic. How would you attack this job while minimizing the number of trips?

That is really not as bad a question as I had at first thought. We would probably not do any return trip jobs that far away anymore, but there was a time when we did.

Best answer: And I have done this on many occasions; I find the hole ( With raccoons there is usually one ) and make a positive set. Then I go into the attic, armed with chloroform. If I miss her with the chloroform ( I usually don't ) she gets caught in the positive set or I throw her in a cage and check for babies. If babies are present, I remove them as well and close the hole.

Now you have a service call, removing usually six raccoons and a closure. If you charged accordingly, you should have made as much as a good lawsuit attorney and even if you didn't, you should still make as much as the attorney's client.

P.S. If any of our employees set less than three traps at any job that was thirty miles away, he would be in for a good butt kicking!

In the case above, how do you apply the chloroform while in an attic. That seems like a good article to me.

You may be right Jim. I'm sure there are a lot of guys in this business that don't realize that they are allowed to use chloroform and pass up on what I consider the best thing invented since customers. Maybe an article would be timely.

Paul remember what happened the last time you did a chloroform article? Make sure the disclaimer is bigger than the article. But I would like to hear how you apply it to a coon in the attic situation, I use it but don't have near the success you seem too.

charge on a time and materials basis
drive time included

Paul, I tried to send you a pm. Says you are over your limit.

Paul,
I would also be interested to hear how you chloroform raccoons in an attic. Also I am new to ADC where you purchase your chloroform?

if you want to make more, charge more. In this industry you will never stop learning money saving techniques that put more on your bottom line per job. Im not cutting corners or quality, but saving materials from one job and trying to use them on the next. My biggest money saving oppurtunity is food. Instead of grabbing something for lunch fast food, pack a lunch. Buy drinks in bulk to save. good luck.

Jordan, I'm a little confused. I assume you are talking about throwing away used materials, right? On the bright side, 12 packs of Coke were 5 for $11 this week at Target.

Yeah, maybe it's time to revisit the chloroform issue again. I sorta remember the brouhaha that ensued the last time; I don't think that'll happen again.
Good advice, Jordan; you'll usually eat a healthier lunch thataway.

Am doing a typical skunk job where we are up to number six, in ten days. There is 18 inches of snow with more coming, and night temperature is around zero. Sometimes they just stay inside. We have three traps out but only have caught one at a time. I have a feeling the males may be arriving one at a time to the location, being drawn by the female in heat scent. We caught one female, so her scent must linger, or else there is a second female. That is how things can drag out, on some jobs that can't be rushed. Most of the jobs my trucks go to are within 30 miles. Beyond this I have an arrangement with my competitors. Maybe you could get together with your competitors to work out something mutually beneficial. Doing things season to season for many seasons, you do learn time/money saving short cuts. Sometimes the lesson is forgotten due to the time that passes between similar incidents. My roots are in fur trapping, but my mind is far from being 'like a steel trap.' If you have a good memory, take care of your brain. Or, develop an effective note keeping system.

Phil is right about the brain. I fell two stories, landed on my head, and you can see the results on here nearly every day.

I'm not sure what you mean by "complete jobs more quickly."

Are you referring to getting the job done from the time it is sold, the number of trips you have to make, how fast an animals is captured, how quickly repairs are performed, or something else? The next question is why do you think you need to be getting done faster?

Speed isn't everything, especially with a service based company. Next time you eat at a fast food place, look at how your meal looks. Are all the ingredients placed nice and neat or does it have a look like it was literally thrown together? Would the meal have the same appeal and "value" if it costs $50 instead of $5?

There is a fixed time for everything that cannot be changed. Drive time to the client will always have a minimum time value with an unknown maximum time value based on vehicle problems, traffic, detours, and weather to name a few. Performing an inspection, getting a trap and/or ladder from the truck, making the set, monitoring the trap will always take time.

You can perform tasks that help minimize the time on-site such as organizing your truck, prebaiting traps, positing ladders to make removal easier and faster, putting tools back where you got them from, making a route you stick to every evening or early morning, etc., but you still have a minimum amount of time you'll spend for each job. And don't forget that this is a service business so talking with the client is part of the service.

If the concern is lost jobs, look at expanding your work hours, scheduling differences, or even hiring an employee.

are you charging by the job or animal?

WCT:

I am an experienced professional operator. Of course I want to complete the job properly and with the right materials. But because I am a professional-doing this to make money- im always looking for ways to be more efficient. If people here can share what they do, perhaps I can finish a job that is 30 miles away with one less trip. that is all i was looking for.

When you say speed isnt everything, im not sure I agree. responding to and remediating a clients issue, properly and quickly is what we should all be striving for. the longer a job takes, the more trips it takes, the more money I lose and the more frustrated a customer can become. If I complete a job with quality service in the fewest trips possible, its win win

cj, I think the problem is the variety of jobs. ( Especially the ones deemed important by the operator ) WCT and a lot of others on this forum make a lot of money from bats and rightly so. I, personally have people for that. ( Don't get me wrong, I can find a bat in a house as fast as anyone two thirds my age, okay, half my age, would you believe one third my age? )

Anyway, I believe I know what you are talking about and this probably pertains to a lot of people besides you; You've got a job that is quite a drive, so in order to make money, you can't have a half a dozen trips. Squirrels are by far the biggest problem. I have personally caught more than twenty gray squirrels in one house and all of them were adults and belonged to the same family. ( How do I know? If I would have set cages outside the house, the numbers may have climbed to a hundred and twenty plus )

Anyway, as usual, I am straying from the subject. If you are talking about raccoons, and I'm guessing you are, here is what I know: No less than three traps. One in the attic, one on the roof, and one hidden behind a hedge and hard to get at. If that doesn't work immediately ( especially the hard to get at one ) it is Conibear time. Oh yeah, bait. A lot of baits sold be people on this site work very well. Good Luck and next time get a job across the street; We did!

Set up charge plus per skunk charge. We tell them up front if a non-target is going to be charged for. It depends on the situation. We charge per job on bats, barriers, clean-outs, demolitions, etc.

thanks paul, appreciate the input. at what point do you guys seal points of egress? when you seal, do you have a system for assuring there are no animals left in the attic space? or do you leave traps in the space as insurance? i guess this is my main question. at what point do you determine the animals are gone and finish exclusion. some instances I cannot use or do not have excluders.

while on the subject of exclusion, not to digress too much, can some of you provide pictures of common squirrel/coon roofline repairs? also, how do some of you repair openings where soffits meet a roofline? that area that is almost impossible to get a drill into to drive a screw

What Phil said X2.

cj, if you catch a lactating female, you have to account for the babies, then close. Closures vary, sheet metal, the same stuff your cages are made of, etc. As to your last sentence, I don't think we've run across anything that our concrete drills can't handle.