USEFUL RABBIT TRAP.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14204, 5 February 1915, Page 2

USEFUL RABBIT TRAP.

There have been many enquiries concerning the rabbit trap which has been used successfully at Bathurst, says the Sydney Herald, and the district rabbit inspector has supplied the statement, which embodied his approval of tho new traps:—The trapjs made of wire-netting 19-gauge 1-Jin mesh, 36in wide. It is an irregular cylinder about 15i.n in diameter, large end, tapering to Gin at the mouth or entrance; it has an inner half cylindrical passage of netting wired into the upper part of the tra pon the inside. The trap . never chokes or becomes blocked until full, and will hold 15 to 20 mixed rabbits, or about 12 or 14 large ones. To set the traps have a lot of waste paper (old newspaper or any large pieces of any kinds of paper), put the small ends of the traps into the holes or burrows which have the most fresh rabbit traffic about them, and the greatest quantity of earth scratched out by the rabbits. Then block up all the other holes or outlets by. ramming dry earth down them. Square the face of the rabbit hole to be blocked with a mattock or spade, so that the paper, when folded several times until it is a little larger than the hole to be blocked, will stand up like a door against the burrow. Shovel dry earth in front of each holo so treated and trample it in. It is bettor to ram dry earth into the burrow before you stand your waste-paper door against it, so that the paper will not bulge inwards from the pressure of the earth. Damp earth will dampen the paper, and the rattle or rustle will go out ol: it. You want dry earth. One drawback is that the old rabbits, where there are no kittens, will burrow out elsewhere. They do this where there is only a thin shell or crust of earth over burrows that run along under the surface. To stop this the operator requires to have a thin, sharp fencing spud, and to probe the ground between and among the holes of the warrens, and dig in any place where he finds a thin crust. The kittens and half-growns will start to come into the traps the second night, sometimes even the first. Old rabbits will not start to come into the traps for several days unless there are kittens to lead them.