Knocked out my first funnel round colony trap today. I have a roll of 14 gauge 1x1 wire but when I build more I'll get some 16 gauge. The 14 gauge is more than heavy enough. This one is 10" BY 36". The bars across the opening are ground fabric staples. I put in a 4"x8" door in the top for critter removal.

Good thinking on the fabric staples….happens I have an ice cream pail of them somewhere…

looks good, i sure think that should work.

I have so many of those fabric staples I could build a thousand funnel colony traps. I used them a lot when I had a market garden. I have buckets full of them.

Just need to find some muskrat habitat where i can use them. Not much in my local area.

Funnel traps work great especially with wings.
been using them for over 40 years in some select spots.
Channels below beaver dams are great spots as well as culverts and feeder cricks.

I made three sizes to try. 12x36x10x36 and 10x24.

Nice work

I wonder how it would work on nutria.

I’ve never lived where there were nutria but bet they would work well. They’d have to be sized a little bigger on the funnel opening.

Funnel guys, what are your thoughts on a 10”x24” or a 12”x24” funnel colony? They look a little short to me but I know of places they would work where a 36” might be a challenge to get in.

I have quite a bit of 24” wire is why I ask.

What is the funnel made of? How’d you make the funnel ? Those are cool. I have a 5 gallon bucket of those staples!

It is metal from a roofing place that makes metal roofing from big rolls. They discard anything under 10'4" and often have bins of end pieces.

I use the Fur Harvesters pattern and will include a picture of it. It is very simple and when I get back home I'll shoot a bunch of pictures of the process. I'm out of town right now. My mom is in the hospital and I need to be here for a bit.

You can make the funnel whatever size you want, for 10 inch use a piece 10x20, for a 12 inch a piece 12x24. I use a 4.5 inch inner circle because it gives a full 4 inch hole for the inner part of the funnel. I attach mine to the cage with small hog rings but you can use wire just as well.

It stymied me at first when I looked at it and realized a 10 inch circle should require 31.4 inches of metal to make the circumference. C=πD. But apparently it doesn't apply to cones. I never took advanced geometry. But it works.

Looks good. Same way I do my doors to get them out.

Thanks. Seems simple enough using roof flashing.

I thought I'd post a few pictures of the funnel making process. At least the process with my limited abilities.

I wish I had taken a picture of the layout with a rectangular, 10x20 piece of metal but I didn't. This picture should give you a good idea how I scribe the half circles. I use a thin piece of wood, in this case old paneling from the house. It makes a decent compass for large circles. I mark the center of the length on the metal and line that mark up with the pivot screw and then have holes at 4.5 inches and 10 inches. I swing arcs with a pencil in the holes then cut out with shears. If I do many more of these I'm going to spring for an electric metal cutting tool. That roofing metal is plenty heavy for these funnels.



I bring the ends together and clamp them with needle nose vise grips, reaching in as far as they'll allow. The seam lays flatter this way than if I start on the outside and work in. I drill at the ends of each vise grip and pop rivet. I started using 5/32 pop rivets and like that size. Some came with the Harbor Freight rivet tool I bought recently. On my old rivet tool the jaws were worn to where they wouldn't grip and hold the rivet shank. Of course HF doesn't carry 5/32 rivets but they are available in bulk on Amazon.



I overlap the edges by about a 1/2 inch.



The seam with the four rivets



I like to peen the rivets.





Next comes the hinge for the front of the funnel.To fit the landscape fabric staples or any 1 inch hardware cloth I mark and cut a 7/8"x 6" strip and cut it to 3 inches. The 3 inch piece gets folded in half with a 20 common nail in the middle and clamped in the vise to form the hinge. I tap the top of the bend with a hammer to round the hinge eye a little more.













Then just clamp it in place and drill and pop rivet. I use two rivets to make sure the hinge doesn't move.

Thanks Marty that’s pretty cool. Harbor Freight makes a little spot welder for sheet metal that would be perfect for getting those cones made faster without rivets.

https://www.harborfreight.com/120v-spot-welder-61205.html

I’ve looked at those. If I was building a bunch of them I might have to get one. Like any tool you get, pretty soon you find all kinds of jobs for it.