A Guide to Setting Fenn Spring Traps Extreme care must be taken when setting a Fenn trap as the springs are extremely powerful and could easily break finger bones or actually sever fingers completely. The setting instructions are based on the person being normally right-handed. Rule number 1, at all times, is NEVER have your fingers above the trap in the area bounded by the bar (C) and the chassis (I) when the trap is set even if the safety hook is on. Hold the trap so that the closed jaws i.e. chassis (A) and the bar (C), are uppermost. Before opening the trap, make sure that the brass dog (F) and safety hook (E) are hanging outwards i.e. clear of the springs. Now, open the trap using your thumbs. Slip your right thumb in the loop (A) and other thumb on the bar (C). The fingers of your right hand should be under the base plate (B) and left fingers under the springs. Close both hands slowly i.e. squeeze your thumbs closer to your fingers and so fully open the jaws, flat.
Now swing the safety hook (E) over bar (C) and flip the dog over also. Make sure the safety hook is latched. The trap should look like above. Still holding the jaws apart, squeeze a little more. Then, with a finger from below, lift the treadle so that the dog (F) locks into the notch (G) on the treadle plate. The trap is now primed. Now it is appropriate to exercise extreme caution by holding the trap horizontally. Because it is now set, the safety hook is not under pressure and can flip over if the trap is tilted too far! Keep it horizontal. Keeping the safety hook in position over the bar, you can now place the trap inside the tunnel. (See instruction later for making a tunnel.) Once it is in position in the tunnel, you can set the sensitivity of the trap. By sensitivity I mean the amount of downward movement on the treadle that it takes to trigger the trap. Do this using a stick and gently tap the treadle downwards until the dog is just held near the open end in the notch. Now it is set and the safety hook can be removed. Use a stick to do this from the side. Preparation before deployment One must get rid of factory smells, grease deposits and human scent on new traps. My choice is to spray them with oven cleaner then rinse off with a hose. Next put them in a metal bucket, add hot water (not quite boiling) and some baking soda. Keep them there for 15 minutes. Drain and repeat then leave them to dry. After two days the chassis will have started to get a little surface rust which is fine. Next spray them all over with matt Nato Green paint. Later, using a black or brown matt apply just a little to around half the trap and chain to achieve a cammo effect. Make sure you mask the end of the dog and the notch first. Thereafter only touch them with rubber gloves that have been kept outside the house. Some people use green Cuprinol but I find this less durable. After allowing a couple of days for the paint to harden, bury the traps in the earth for a week so that they acquire an earthy odour. Instead of burying them, an option is to place them in a clean, closed container with crushed acorns or pine needles depending on what the dominant tree species is locally. If you don t want the effort above, then commercial products are available such as log wood dye from the USA. Surface rust does not impair the action of the traps, and since the trigger actions on Fenns are brass to brass, their sensitivity will be unaffected. The cheap Chinese imports do not have brass to brass and frankly are best avoided altogether. Serious trappers would never buy them. Furthermore they are actually illegal to use in the UK as they are not approved under the STAO. Badly rusted traps can be wire brushed but generally this is not necessary. Always store your traps long term in a garden shed inside a container with a lid. It goes without saying that the container must be free of all human and chemical odours. I recommend putting some dry soil in the container first together with acorns or pine needles - as appropriate to your trapping environment.
Tunnels purpose and type The Spring Trap Approval Order (2012) stipulates that Fenn traps should be used in a tunnel. The tunnel can be a fabricated affair or a tunnel made in the field from naturally occurring objects such as stone slabs or logs. With the Mark 6 trap for rabbits it is appropriate to use the rabbit warren as the tunnel. Here, the trap should be in a shallow hole dug in the floor so that the treadle plate is barely level with the floor and the disguised with a slight dusting of sand and other naturally occurring material. Most vermin are naturally inquisitive so a tunnel works well with rats, stoats and grey squirrels especially if suitable bait is used. Rats especially are more confident when in body contact with a wall or vertical surface. The length of the artificial tunnel should be between 60cms and 95cms. The most important consideration is to have the correct internal dimensions. The internal width of the tunnel should be not much more than 25mm wider than the trap when it is placed cross wise in the tunnel. The internal height must be no more than 25mm higher than the trap when it is in the un-set condition. The trap is designed to spring up before snapping closed so that the animal is basically squeezed up against the roof before the jaws close. This means that escape is virtually impossible, no matter how quick the animal s reactions are. Tunnels may be designed to be accessed from either end. If there is only one entrance then there must be light at the other end of the tunnel as most animals are reluctant to go into a dark, closed tunnel. They want a means of escape. In terms of tunnel considerations, the easiest vermin to trap in the UK are grey squirrels. By comparison with rats and stoats, they are less intelligent and seem less wary of artificial tunnels. Also, their greed overcomes caution more readily. That said a good trapper will always set a trap and tunnel whilst observing the best practice in terms of location, position, construction, materials, camouflage, baits and the need to minimise human scent around the location. Tunnel Materials Choose your materials for tunnel construction carefully. A good natural tunnel can be made from 6 inch rough sawn timber cut into 60cm lengths. It must not be treated with wood preservative as this will keep vermin away from the trap for a considerable time. Only three sections are required as the ground will form a natural base for the tunnel. It also permits you to make a depression for the trap so that the treadle is level with the ground. Orange coloured clay land drain pipes and plastic pipes make excellent tunnels for the Fenn traps. They should be large enough for the trap to operate properly but no more, ensuring a successful catch. The clay land drain pipes are 45cms long and are ideal for this purpose. They are long lasting. The larger plastic 6 inch diameter pipes are good for the Mark 4 Fenn. I have come across successful tunnels made on 3 sides with 25mm metal mesh sprayed matt green and interweaved with grass on the sides and other vegetation on top. This tunnel type is very light weight and so needs to be pegged to the ground. My favourite tunnel however is made from stone slabs. These will last for many years once the trouble has been taken to make and site them properly. They should be made to fit with the surroundings, as otherwise they will draw the attention of trap thieves. The effectiveness of any tunnel may be enhanced by channelling vermin towards the tunnel. A simple expedient is to place a few hazel sticks in the ground to influence the path taken by the target species.
Location and Trapping Craft Location is the first consideration. Place the trap close to a known trail. Put close where the can se it but not directly on the trail. Vermin, in common with all animals, will follow regular paths whilst hunting. They especially don t like moving over open ground. They prefer trails along hedge bottoms, walls, fence lines, dry ditches, furrows and such like in their search for food. If they do have to cross open area they will take the shortest route. Rats have a very strong preference to move whilst in body contact with a vertical surface like a wall and hate being exposed in open areas. This makes placement an easy decision. Natural camouflage using vegetation and local materials allows the tunnel to appear consistent with the immediate surroundings. This will create less suspicion by the vermin and help to avoid interference by the general public. For this reason it should also be located away from public footpaths in many cases. When selecting a new location place a baited but unset trap there first so that the target the species becomes confident about that spot. For weasels stoats and mink, tunnels can be baited with any fresh meat or offal. But rabbit meat and eggs are by far the best. Use maize, corn, unshelled pea nuts or peanut butter for rats and grey squirrels. Peanut butter tends to go rancid in time so it is necessary to refresh it unless the weather is very cold. If one wants to target a single species then urine of that species will be an excellent attractant but this will deter other species. If you use a single-entry trap, place the bait beyond the treadle towards the back of the tunnel, but forward of the rear of the tunnel you do not want the target to take the bait from outside the tunnel. If you use a double-entry trap then hang the bait above the treadle. Personally, I put it below the treadle provided I have been able to create adequate space in the floor beneath the treadle It is vital to ensure only target species can gain access to the tunnel. No one for example wants to kill hedgehogs unintentionally. The best way to do this is to restrict access by limiting the size of the opening in effect, having a physical excluder. This can be done by placing sticks at the entrance but I much prefer to place steel rods as sticks can be gnawed through. Locate the rods by holes drilled into the top of the tunnel and hammed into the ground. Physical excluder.
It is comforting to note that correctly sized excluders have greatly reduced hedgehog kills. Tip - Use a map to record the location of each trap if a large quantity is in use over a wide area. Some locations will catch better than others. Try to reason why and then learn from this and build others in a similar way. Don t worry if the catch rate falls off sharply after a while. It may just be that you have caught all the vermin in that area. Don t be tempted to lift and remove them. Keep them baited and checked regularly. It will pay off in the long term. Keep reminding yourself how rapidly vermin can breed. If you miss a pair or even a single female, then geometric progression can take place in no time at all. If you find one particular trap is not making kills whilst others are, then test it with a stick. See how much pressure it takes to respond. If it needs too much force, try and reason why. Reset it, taking particular attention to clearance under the treadle and the position of the dog in the notch. A note of caution here; it is not good for a trap to be dry-fired on to a hard object, so your stick should be padded with something (like rubber) where the jaws of the trap will strike. An alternative is a suitable piece of largish diameter hose pipe. If it still doesn t perform then choose another location. Another factor will be seasonal variations in numbers. Seasonal considerations influence ground cover and whether you have difficulty in spotting what vermin are doing. Gamekeepers with moorland have a difficult situation with a short, thick ground cover all year round. The lowland gamekeeper however face a similar problem probably only during the summer months due to the standing crops. After crops are harvested then the task of detecting the vermin and their trails will be made much easier. Springtime is when the animals move about more frequently in search of mates and food and so a gamekeepers most productive killing times are generally February thro April i.e. before the cover gets too high again. In the case of grey squirrels the best time is definitely March thro September when their natural food (acorns) is scarce. But throughout the year, a spot close to a bird feeder will always produce results. Traps should be anchored with a chain or cable. Alternatively, they can be attached to a secure object like a fence post. This will ensure you do not lose the trap and its kill to scavengers and predators such as foxes, badgers or dogs. Steel pegs are best however hardwood pegs are suitable if driven with a wooden mallet. My most successful locations have been traps positioned on crossings over water otherwise known as rail traps. These can often be made naturally where a tree or branch has fallen across a stream or ditch. No animal wants to get wet when it doesn t need to so you can imagine we can use this to our advantage. With a tree trunk, chisel a base for the trap and then cover with a metal mesh to make a through tunnel. As no speciesspecific lure is used it is particularly necessary to limit the size of the entrances to avoid unintended kills. I tend to leave a small hole to ensure only stoats and rats get in. For squirrels a tunnel on top of a wooden fence gives good results.
Now, if you have a really serious problem with stoats, weasels and mink then the most effective lure is the musk from the glands of any of these species. It can be bought commercially but if you are really keen (and very careful) you can collect some from your own kills. Rather than diverse too far from the main theme, suffice to say that the technique on how to do this is available on the internet. Best practice in trapping includes minimising collateral impact on non-target species. One way to reduce the possibility is to have a short and intense trapping period. This is achieved by pre-baiting of tunnels with the appropriate bait before traps are deployed. This concentrates target species and is especially effective in the case of squirrels and rats. One good tip I have always observed is to only ever approach a trap location wearing wellington boots with trousers tucked into the boots. The reason is humans leave a scent trail that disturbs animals. The greatest source of this scent is from inside the trousers. Minute skin flakes and hair falls down the trouser leg so keeping trousers tucked in prevents this. Another step is to rub some with some greenery to give them a natural scent. The next recommendation is to wear rubber gauntlet style gloves. Trust me it works! Make sure you check your traps daily if possible as a sprung trap is a temptation for trap thieves and saboteurs.