Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Trapping Best rabbit live trap?

Lots more choices out there than a Havaheart. Okay, which is it?
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Kness
A mile of woods next door has been a prolific breeding ground for an influx of rabbits through my yard. I haven't been able to keep up with a .22 and sub-sonic hollow points. The neighbor's house isn't a good backstop either, so I'm live trap shopping. I know I can get something over at Harbor Freight for $29.95, but my rabbits deserve to be caught in something better. Suggestions would be welcome.

I always liked the Williams but bob passed away lately. New owners now and they go by Legacy livetraps. Rabbits dont like going in and walking on wire so no matter what brand you decide on, cover the wire with dirt or grass and also wrap the trap in cardboard or something to make it dark inside. I believe that a wooden box trap is actually best for bunnies. My next choice would be the Wickenkamps. The Tomahawks.

I appreciate the input. Then the question becomes where to get them? Just general junk here locally, so I suppose a call to the manufacturer off the Internet is my next step. Lots of coon trapping You Tube stuff on the Internet because they are hard to hold and hard on a live trap. Too large a box trap for rabbits though.

Just search rabbit gums. They are easy to build and work well.

I'll be darned, I thought that was a misprint and that searching for "rabbit gums" would get me something on rabbit dentistry and that's there too, but first up is a bunch of build it yourself rabbit trap plans. I'm understanding that rabbits like dark, covered enclosures in the first place and dirt covered non-wire floors. And EJKELLEY's post about wooden boxes being good is great advise. Making box traps could be a nice cottage industry for someone locally. Lots of gardeners out there with the same rabbit problem.

We just built what we called "box traps" when we were kids. Scrap wood box approximately 5"wide x 6" or so high and 15" or so long. A drop down door trigged by a notched stick in the rear of the box dropped the door.

I am sure an example cam be found online somewhere.

I've live trapped a lot of rabbits back when I was a kid. We used homemade boxes. Used stiff wire attached to a treadle inside the box that would drop the door. A screw eye holds the wire in place. Make the door longer than the height of the opening and it will keep them in.

The big problem I had when using box traps was that when approaching a thrown trap you had no way of knowing what was inside. 🥴. Seems best I can remember there would often be a big old possum hissing at you or a pissed off skunk with vengeance foremost on his mind!🫣

Use half an apple for bait.

We put 1/4"wire mesh on the back so we could look into the box and see what we had. Yes possum's were a problem and they would really mess a trap up crapping all in it.

Box traps and what VaHunter said. We ate out of those box traps.

When I trapped fur the standing joke was "ya have to start a week early so's you can git all the possum's trapped out." I never did it but it sure made sense.

That’s all we ever used when I was a kid, caught a bunch. Can’t remember ever catching a possum.

Cheese wheel traps.

An interesting idea on a new trap design, thanks for posting that. I did finally get my Duke baited and got my #6 rabbit caught night before last. #7 lets me get close with the riding lawn mower, so I'm a pistol packing mower lately. I do like the heavy green powder coated wire mesh on that Duke and those drop down trap door rings are sure and easy release. I dirt floored and covered it thanks to you guys and it worked well. #7 has gotten trap shy I think and I've seen #8 running the yard now too.