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Old-Style Rabbit Traps
With guidance from his grandfather, Donald Allen built his first rabbit box trap with a handsaw when he was 10. Five decades later the Snellville, Georgia, man is still building them, pretty much the same way except with power tools. The old-fashioned boxes are quite popular, he says.
  “A lot of people trap and eat rabbits. Schools and colleges trap rabbits for educational purposes,” Allen explains.
  His first choice is to make them out of salvaged barn wood, but he also picks up scrap pine lumber. “I weather it for a year to turn dark and eliminate scent. I never use treated boards,” he says.
  The design is a 2-ft. by 5 1/2-in. by 7-in. box with a door that drops when a rabbit hits a stick inside the box. Allen hand carves the trigger system (trigger, forked balance and top balance sticks) out of tree branches.
  The boxes don’t work in gardens to eliminate destructive rabbits, he emphasizes. Rabbits don’t go in the box looking for food, and if they’re baited the traps attract possums or skunks.
  “Rabbits are looking to bed down in them,” Allen says. The box trap needs to be set up in the woods near rabbit trails. He sprinkles salt water around the trap as an extra incentive and to cover up human scent. The traps must be checked every day, he emphasizes.
  Allen sells his traps for $20 (plus $8 shipping).
  Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Donald Allen, 3647 Spain Rd., Snellville, Georgia 30039 (ph 404 578-7758; Dka92554@gmail.com).



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2016 - Volume #40, Issue #2