I had 6 Safeguard cages set for raccoons that may or may not have been going under a deck, 3 in each spot, guarding the crawl unders. These two were in adjacent cages at the same time, from the outside. What happened next blew my mind.





If I hadn't recently started using cameras on some of my jobs, I would have thought that cage was tripped by the caught coon.
Fortunately, he stuck around and committed to one of the other 3 cages, which also had a camera on it.

Looks ike he wasnt caught to begin with.he just backed out when the other coon was caught then the door closed after he was almost out.

I get that, I just couldn't believe he was quick enough to get under that door. He was fully in the cage when it tripped.

He didn't escape...he was never captured. Door fell on his back.

I just can’t believe he stuck around and recommitted…

Light trigger? Or not stable?

guillotine type door and you would have had him/her.......jk

Vinke, the cages may have been touching, but otherwise stable and I didn't notice the trigger being light. I think he hit the pan on his thrust backwards and caught the door.
There was no indication of a 4th coon (caught 1st one two nights before). But I suppose it's possible. It surprised me that it would commit again.
Just thought some of you might want to see the close call, even though my description may have been unintentionally deceptive.
The previous night, one raccoon went into four different cages and stole the bait without tripping any of them. Catching the action on cameras has explained a lot of empty cages and missing bait over the years, that I can adjust to. Time and efficiency. Always learning.

I have had many coons back out of box traps like that. Last Summer, I had a large coon that killed hundreds of dollars in birds in two nights, back out of traps over and over. I finally got him in a DP.



In the past I usually set two 1 1/2s staggered just outside the door, when I would get a box trap raider. I used 2 1 1/2s to make it harder for them to use the box trap to pull out of the leg holds.

Keith

in my cages I wire a soup can in the back corner to get them as far in as I can and dance on that treadle.

if I am using chicken leg bones I wire them to the back top of the cage the deeper they are when the door falls the better your catch chance.

when the can gets really beat up , I raid the recycling again

was watching a feral cat one day at a place I was trapping eating from the little bowl of kibble and managing to not touch the treadle at all , I ran at the cage and it leapt to the back and the door closed , before that I was thinking I had a stuck treadle

that was when I realized I needed them to work the bait longer or I needed a much deeper trap.

I always put the bait in a small can, (ie: cat/tuna), and bury it UNDER the trap a the trigger. Makes them work the trap longer and gets them working hard.

That is why I prefer the Williams style traps. When tripped the door just comes down by gravity, no slamming of a door with a spring to spook other coons. Also the treddle framed with steel and covered with wire is more likely to be stepped on than a solid metal treddle. I too, put the bait under the trap, right at the far edge of the treddle so they worked thru the wire treddle to reach the bait.
Some shorter traps I extended the treddle all the way to the back of the cage, to be able to get the reaching thru the treddle but still have the coon in the back of the trap. I modified some Williams traps to make them bobcat cagetraps. Did this by extending the floor of the trap down by 4 inches. This puts the treddle 4 inches up in the air. coons have to climb over the treddle to get to bait. Tomorrow I will post a picture of one of these modified traps.
Bait placed under a Safeguard trap will get coons to lift up on the treddle and thus not fire the trap.

Here are the pics of a modified Williams cage trap used to catch bobcats. It really works well on coons with the raised treddle in the back. To work the bait they lay on the treddle with their bellies.
Traps do require to be stabilized and staked so they do not tip over as they are top heavy. I did not extend the iron frame.