Thank you! Been trying to trap an injured feral cat for over a week, wasn't happening. She wouldn't go into the box trap. Got the drop trap, watched the video and trapped her in under 10 minutes, incredible.
Caught my first super weary cat tonight with this. He wouldnt go into the spring door trap but this worked. Modified my spring door trap to work as a transfer cage and now he has a new home elsewhere.
Thank you so much for the explanation on how to set up the trap (and how to use it). I bought one because I have a very smart kitten whom I have had no luck catching with the traditional spring trap. She gets her smarts from the mama cat, who is smart as a whip. My roomie and I are trapping every cat we can for tnr. We're keeping a couple of the sweet ones that test negative for fiv/felv (to ensure the safety of our other kitties). Some of them are being socialized by us so that they can be adopted. The others will have food (and pets if they let me) for as long as we live here and they show up for noms. ❤
Excellent, detailed video, on using a drop trap. They are very tricky to use and require constant monitoring. Preparation is everything. Thank You for the video.
Thanks for this video! I live in the middle of the woods and crappy people drop off their cats from time to time out here. Some can be real hard to catch and was looking at one of these. And I can lend it to my friend who tends to 3 different colonies too!
Thank you so much as this contains info I could not find anywhere else. Like chaining the trap if the public can see it and letting the cat/s eat from under the trap for a few days. Thank you so much as I believe I would’ve failed had I not seen this. Lots out there on the box traps but not as much on drop traps which can be your last hope. ♥️
I’m finding that if I keep the end of the trap uncovered while transferring from drop trap, that some cats are racing so hard to get out that they bash their face and break teeth. I feel so bad, this just happened. So next time I will only 1/2 cover the back.
I don’t know y’all, but I wish I lived near by so I can borrow a trap 🤣 you guys are amazing thank you for this and everything you do for the animals and the planet
When closing up the drop trap, be sure to latch the springs to the body of the trap. Otherwise when you go to use it again. It will be all stuck together.
For the transfer from the drop to the box trap, once both are covered, I prefer to take off the sheet on the drop trap and the cat will go instinctively towards the covered box trap to hide itself .
Well I am ready to just get a big rock. LOL But seriously I recently bought one of these for a female who we have lost count of how many kittens she's dropped since we have tried to trap her. As soon as she saw this she took off and hasn't been back for two days. She does this with the standard traps too. I have no idea what to do. Several years of this now from her. We have trapped over 40 other cats with regular traps and no problem. She has the kittens in the yard next to ours all the time. We have big yards with a lot of vegetation and easy for them to conceal themselves. It doesn't work to put a trap over there either. If we starve her she just goes across the alley to someone over there who puts out food, but doesn't TNR
The only way to TNVR 100% of the cats in a colony is to first identify and coordinate with 100% of the people feeding the cats. Before we trap, we canvas the neighborhood knocking on every door, talking to anyone who answers the door, and leaving fliers for those people who are not home. We also check the front yards of people who are not home for bowls and note the house for a return visit if no one answers. (It sometimes take multiple return visits and even some gifts of cat food to make contact with feeders who are shy but this is necessary.) We map the location of all of the feeders of the colony. Most established colonies have a half dozen or more feeders and look something like a bullseye on a map with a large central food site in the center and smaller sites radiating outward. We discuss our TNVR plans with everyone we speak with, and collect the contact information and some basic colony information (such as feeding times and approximate number of cats at dinner) from each feeder we identify. We then make enough vet appointment over a two day windows to accommodate all of the cats in the neighborhood. We contact all of the feeders and then arrange simultaneous trapping of the entire colony at all feeding sites over a 72 hour window. In this manner we are able to capture 100% of the cats in the neighborhood in just 3 days. If you have not identified and coordinated with all of the feeders of your neighborhood colony, your chances of success are slim for exactly the reasons you describe. Coordination with your fellow caretakers is the key to success, much more so than any particular type of equipment.
Your video is so clear thank you!!! I will use this to trap a mommy cat and one of her kittens. I could trap her two other kittens with a tunnel trap, but now she’s learned and she’s skittish… thank you again, these are gold tips… The sigh is only for the post to slide freely when pulled?
If you are trapping on a rough surface such as a deck, grass, or gravel parking lot, placing something flat and hard under the trap stand will allow it to slide much more easily.
I bought a drop trap and set it up and caught the cat in it the first day. However, I could NOT get the cat to move from the drop trap and into the transfer cage. I tried tapping the cage at the end away from the transfer cage. I tired spraying the cat with water. I tried poking a stick into the trap and prodding the cat into the transfer cage and nothing. I finally put on gloves and tried sticking my hand over there and moving the cat into the transfer cage, but I accidently raised the drop trap up too far when doing so and the cat escaped. I don't know if she'll ever be back or not or if she'll even go under the drop trap again. And even if she does I don't know how I'll get her out of the drop trap and into the transfer cage. I am so disappointed this did not work. Now the cat will stuck out in the freezing snow all winter. I was going to take her to the vet, get her spayed and her shots and bring her indoors to live with us.
You had the drop trap fully covered with an opaque cloth but plenty of light shining through the rear end of the transfer cage? If so, that is unusual. If the cat avoids the drop trap in the future, you can train it to eat out of a box trap. Wire the front end of the box trap open and begin feeding the cat each day a little closer to the box trap. Then begin the put the food just inside the moth of the trap. Then move the food a little further in each day. The cat will eventually become accustomed to eating inside the box trap and then you can set it to trap the cat.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 It was night time when I caught her and so there was no light near the transfer cage. Was that the problem? She won't go into a box trap at all. I've already tried that. She won't go in it because the next door neighbors already caught her in one, but then decided to let her go. She is still out there eating and I'm hoping to retry the drop trap again. I don't know if she'll go under it again or not. I may still have the same problem with her not going into the transfer though so I don't know what to do.
@@davidangeloftm8616 Yes, anytime that you need to transfer a cat from one container to another you need light. Cats are extremely far sighted. They can see very little other than movement within a few feet of their face. They use their sense of smell and whiskers to determine what is directly in front of them if it isn't moving. Because of this, cats cannot see the bars of a trap which is why they go berserk until you cover them. It's like they are bumping against invisible walls. The way you transfer a cat from one cage to another is that you cover all of the walls except the wall in the direction that you want to cat to travel. The light shining through that open wall will appear to the cat to be an opening and escape route so the cat will run that way. If you are drop trapping at night in a dark spot you can use the light set up shown in the beginning of the video to flood the area with enough light that you will be able to transfer the cat. Also, the box trap acclimation process I described above WILL work for a previously trapped cat so long as you do it slowly over time and don't rush the process. Drop traps are a fairly new invention. Trappers used this box trap acclimation process successfully for decades to retrap trap-shy cats before the drop trap was invented.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Thanks for the response. The cat is still out there, but now she won't go into the drop trap while I am out there. I'm thinking I will have to set it and then try to pull the string from inside the house, but to do this I'll have to reorient the trap sideways from what it is now. I hope this doesn't scare her further.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Just an update - I was able to retrap the kitten in the drop trap today and she is now safely inside and has her first vet appt scheduled soon. Thanks for your video.
No one in our group has. We have never seen a need. Both Bryan Kortis and Sterling Davis both had podcasts on in the last couple of weeks discussing it. Bryan basically indicated that he didn't see any advantages and that the whirring of the motor before the latch pulls could spook and loose cats. Sterling said the biggest advantage he saw was he was able to attract more male trapper because "they liked pulling a trigger." We will probably stick to the rope for now.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 I'm going to get the remote because of the distance involved (about 30 yards or so). I hope the remote is good for that kind of distance but I don't know.
@@dirkdiggler404 I'm sure Tomahawk customer service can answer that about their remote. If you find the remote does not work for you try placing a piece of corrugated plastic under the stand to allow it to slip easier and then use braided Dracron rope. You can get this from Amazon and it has much less stretch than nylon so it works well even from a distance.
My cat doesn’t even come when she see the drop trap in the entrance from where she was eating usually:( also she escaped from the regular trap because I didn’t work well:( I don’t know what also to do!!!
Thank you! Been trying to trap an injured feral cat for over a week, wasn't happening. She wouldn't go into the box trap. Got the drop trap, watched the video and trapped her in under 10 minutes, incredible.
Awesome job! Thanks for caring.
Thank you... I used one tonight to catch a big ole Tom who's been running in my neighborhood for over a year... tomorrow he'll get snipped...
Caught my first super weary cat tonight with this. He wouldnt go into the spring door trap but this worked. Modified my spring door trap to work as a transfer cage and now he has a new home elsewhere.
Thank you so much for the explanation on how to set up the trap (and how to use it). I bought one because I have a very smart kitten whom I have had no luck catching with the traditional spring trap. She gets her smarts from the mama cat, who is smart as a whip. My roomie and I are trapping every cat we can for tnr. We're keeping a couple of the sweet ones that test negative for fiv/felv (to ensure the safety of our other kitties). Some of them are being socialized by us so that they can be adopted. The others will have food (and pets if they let me) for as long as we live here and they show up for noms. ❤
Excellent, detailed video, on using a drop trap. They are very tricky to use and require constant monitoring. Preparation is everything. Thank You for the video.
Thank you for the clear explanation. Particularly helpful was the instructions on how to transfer from the drop trap to a trap.
Thanks. Very helpful. I have three cats left to catch (out of a colony of 14) so wish me luck!
How did it go?? 🤗🤗🤗
Very thorough! Thanks!!
Thanks! All your instructions were helpful! And they worked!
Thanks for this video! I live in the middle of the woods and crappy people drop off their cats from time to time out here. Some can be real hard to catch and was looking at one of these. And I can lend it to my friend who tends to 3 different colonies too!
Thank you so much as this contains info I could not find anywhere else. Like chaining the trap if the public can see it and letting the cat/s eat from under the trap for a few days. Thank you so much as I believe I would’ve failed had I not seen this. Lots out there on the box traps but not as much on drop traps which can be your last hope. ♥️
Great video. I don’t use the drop trap that often so I have to watch your video on how to fold it back up. 😆
great instructions thank you so much
I’m finding that if I keep the end of the trap uncovered while transferring from drop trap, that some cats are racing so hard to get out that they bash their face and break teeth. I feel so bad, this just happened. So next time I will only 1/2 cover the back.
I don’t know y’all, but I wish I lived near by so I can borrow a trap 🤣 you guys are amazing thank you for this and everything you do for the animals and the planet
Thank you so much for this video
Chain lock is a great idea as traps tend to grow legs.
When closing up the drop trap, be sure to latch the springs to the body of the trap. Otherwise when you go to use it again. It will be all stuck together.
USAtexasforever yep. Good suggestion and wish I had read it before trying to close this thing up.
For the transfer from the drop to the box trap, once both are covered, I prefer to take off the sheet on the drop trap and the cat will go instinctively towards the covered box trap to hide itself .
I love all cat 💞🐾🐈💕🐱👍✌️
Thank you for this information,, it will work great for us.
Thank you.
THANK YOU so much.
thank you
Good info.
Well I am ready to just get a big rock. LOL But seriously I recently bought one of these for a female who we have lost count of how many kittens she's dropped since we have tried to trap her. As soon as she saw this she took off and hasn't been back for two days. She does this with the standard traps too. I have no idea what to do. Several years of this now from her. We have trapped over 40 other cats with regular traps and no problem. She has the kittens in the yard next to ours all the time. We have big yards with a lot of vegetation and easy for them to conceal themselves. It doesn't work to put a trap over there either. If we starve her she just goes across the alley to someone over there who puts out food, but doesn't TNR
The only way to TNVR 100% of the cats in a colony is to first identify and coordinate with 100% of the people feeding the cats. Before we trap, we canvas the neighborhood knocking on every door, talking to anyone who answers the door, and leaving fliers for those people who are not home. We also check the front yards of people who are not home for bowls and note the house for a return visit if no one answers. (It sometimes take multiple return visits and even some gifts of cat food to make contact with feeders who are shy but this is necessary.) We map the location of all of the feeders of the colony. Most established colonies have a half dozen or more feeders and look something like a bullseye on a map with a large central food site in the center and smaller sites radiating outward. We discuss our TNVR plans with everyone we speak with, and collect the contact information and some basic colony information (such as feeding times and approximate number of cats at dinner) from each feeder we identify. We then make enough vet appointment over a two day windows to accommodate all of the cats in the neighborhood. We contact all of the feeders and then arrange simultaneous trapping of the entire colony at all feeding sites over a 72 hour window. In this manner we are able to capture 100% of the cats in the neighborhood in just 3 days. If you have not identified and coordinated with all of the feeders of your neighborhood colony, your chances of success are slim for exactly the reasons you describe. Coordination with your fellow caretakers is the key to success, much more so than any particular type of equipment.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Thanks so much for all you do and great tips!!
Your video is so clear thank you!!! I will use this to trap a mommy cat and one of her kittens. I could trap her two other kittens with a tunnel trap, but now she’s learned and she’s skittish… thank you again, these are gold tips… The sigh is only for the post to slide freely when pulled?
If you are trapping on a rough surface such as a deck, grass, or gravel parking lot, placing something flat and hard under the trap stand will allow it to slide much more easily.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 thank you 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼 one can see you have all the experience and generosity !!!
i trapped 2 kittens and mom in drop trap i bought myself at work, but i only really have a regular trap and a carrier, who should i pout in what?
I bought a drop trap and set it up and caught the cat in it the first day. However, I could NOT get the cat to move from the drop trap and into the transfer cage. I tried tapping the cage at the end away from the transfer cage. I tired spraying the cat with water. I tried poking a stick into the trap and prodding the cat into the transfer cage and nothing. I finally put on gloves and tried sticking my hand over there and moving the cat into the transfer cage, but I accidently raised the drop trap up too far when doing so and the cat escaped. I don't know if she'll ever be back or not or if she'll even go under the drop trap again. And even if she does I don't know how I'll get her out of the drop trap and into the transfer cage. I am so disappointed this did not work. Now the cat will stuck out in the freezing snow all winter. I was going to take her to the vet, get her spayed and her shots and bring her indoors to live with us.
You had the drop trap fully covered with an opaque cloth but plenty of light shining through the rear end of the transfer cage? If so, that is unusual. If the cat avoids the drop trap in the future, you can train it to eat out of a box trap. Wire the front end of the box trap open and begin feeding the cat each day a little closer to the box trap. Then begin the put the food just inside the moth of the trap. Then move the food a little further in each day. The cat will eventually become accustomed to eating inside the box trap and then you can set it to trap the cat.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 It was night time when I caught her and so there was no light near the transfer cage. Was that the problem? She won't go into a box trap at all. I've already tried that. She won't go in it because the next door neighbors already caught her in one, but then decided to let her go. She is still out there eating and I'm hoping to retry the drop trap again. I don't know if she'll go under it again or not. I may still have the same problem with her not going into the transfer though so I don't know what to do.
@@davidangeloftm8616 Yes, anytime that you need to transfer a cat from one container to another you need light. Cats are extremely far sighted. They can see very little other than movement within a few feet of their face. They use their sense of smell and whiskers to determine what is directly in front of them if it isn't moving. Because of this, cats cannot see the bars of a trap which is why they go berserk until you cover them. It's like they are bumping against invisible walls. The way you transfer a cat from one cage to another is that you cover all of the walls except the wall in the direction that you want to cat to travel. The light shining through that open wall will appear to the cat to be an opening and escape route so the cat will run that way. If you are drop trapping at night in a dark spot you can use the light set up shown in the beginning of the video to flood the area with enough light that you will be able to transfer the cat. Also, the box trap acclimation process I described above WILL work for a previously trapped cat so long as you do it slowly over time and don't rush the process. Drop traps are a fairly new invention. Trappers used this box trap acclimation process successfully for decades to retrap trap-shy cats before the drop trap was invented.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Thanks for the response. The cat is still out there, but now she won't go into the drop trap while I am out there. I'm thinking I will have to set it and then try to pull the string from inside the house, but to do this I'll have to reorient the trap sideways from what it is now. I hope this doesn't scare her further.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 Just an update - I was able to retrap the kitten in the drop trap today and she is now safely inside and has her first vet appt scheduled soon. Thanks for your video.
Where do you buy that tomahawk trap??
The best place to buy a Tomahawk Drop Trap is from Tomahawk. Their website is: www.livetrap.com/
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 yees I looked on their web sight but I can't find the one with no bottom to it like the one in video. I need that one. any help?
@@Soldruid Type the words "drop trap" into the search bar on their web site.
That transfer makes me nervous
has anyone used the remote instead of a string to trigger the drop?
No one in our group has. We have never seen a need. Both Bryan Kortis and Sterling Davis both had podcasts on in the last couple of weeks discussing it. Bryan basically indicated that he didn't see any advantages and that the whirring of the motor before the latch pulls could spook and loose cats. Sterling said the biggest advantage he saw was he was able to attract more male trapper because "they liked pulling a trigger." We will probably stick to the rope for now.
@@laurelcatsinc.8696 I'm going to get the remote because of the distance involved (about 30 yards or so). I hope the remote is good for that kind of distance but I don't know.
@@dirkdiggler404 I'
@@dirkdiggler404 I'm sure Tomahawk customer service can answer that about their remote. If you find the remote does not work for you try placing a piece of corrugated plastic under the stand to allow it to slip easier and then use braided Dracron rope. You can get this from Amazon and it has much less stretch than nylon so it works well even from a distance.
My cat doesn’t even come when she see the drop trap in the entrance from where she was eating usually:( also she escaped from the regular trap because I didn’t work well:( I don’t know what also to do!!!
Set the trap out and feed under the trap and ONLY under the trap. After a week of this, the cat will be eating under the trap.