Buck Hempel
1. Use sweet baits/lures when trapping raccoons and skunks. House pets normally enjoy the more pungent meat baits.
2. If you think droppings are from bats, try crushing them. Bat droppings will turn into dust because they contain insect exoskeletons.
3. Use a double-door cage trap to help capture cautious animals. The animal sees straight through it instead of the dead-end back of the cage.
4. A cover over your cage traps will help keep captured skunks calm; they don’t like to spray what they can’t see.
5. Use nesting material or droppings collected from one trap as a lure in a cage trap for trapping the same species.
Buck Hempel is Manager, Wildlife and Exclusion Services for Terminix International.
Buck: you my want to mention that if you going to crush droppings that you should wear a respirator so as not to inhale the dust particles which my be harmful.
Awesome tips to help keep unwanted guests out of your yard and home. Recently I’ve had a skunk problem that I can’t seem to get rid of. I’m gonna try the sheet over the cage trick, and see if it fools the skunk to walk into the trap. Thanks for the wonderful suggestion.