Review: Humanely capture wild animals with a Havahart Box Trap

Living in the country as we do, it’s not unusual for many wild things to be roaming around the yard at any given time. For the most part, we don’t mind. What I am not too thrilled about is having what seems like a family of opossum living underneath our front porch. They come out at dusk and in the middle of the night to scare away our kitty then eat her food. She is very confused by these weird “things” that look like a giant hairy rat, I don’t blame her! They also make a ruckus trying to get into the garbage cans! So last week, Chris finally had a free minute to set the new Havahart live animal trap that I received to review. 

The Havahart Easy Set Trap comes in several different sizes so that you can choose the one that suites your needs. The Large One Door Trap that we have is perfect for us. With this trap we can safely capture opossums, raccoon and stray cats, even a good-sized groundhog would fit.  We baited the trap with Miss KiKi’s bowl of cat food, since that seems to be the opossum’s favorite meal. Within 15 minutes of hubby walking back in the door, we heard the trap go off.

Sure enough, we had caught an opossum! It was a younger one, which I’m sure means there are more this size roaming around. Miss KiKi was quite annoyed that the opossum had her dish, she tried to make friends but the irate little marsupial wasn’t having anything to do with her advances! We had to leave the angry prisoner in the cage overnight, which worked out well. He/she? was still in there the next morning when we went out to check.

And, I have to say, it was even just the tiniest bit cute. A tiny bit. Until it started drooling and hissing. Then, not so much. 

Before heading off to work, Chris took the opossum off into the wild blue yonder… meaning many roads away from our home where it will hopefully stay put. I wasn’t able to ride with him to see the release but he says that it was extremely easy to just use the handle to lift the door so the opossum could be set free. 

You know what else? That little opossum grabbed a hold of Miss KiKi’s food bowl and ran off into a culvert pipe with it! I guess he thought it was his food dish since he had probably been eating out of it for a while now. Chris said he laughed at how silly the possum looked dragging off the food dish. He might go back in a few days to see if the dish is still in the culvert, and if he can reach it so Miss KiKi can stop eating out of a plastic TV dinner tray.

We are very pleased with the Havahart animal trap. In the past, we have tried other traps that were nowhere near as easy to use as this one has been. I could set and release an animal with this trap myself, if I had to. It is such a relief not having to watch Chris shoot the problem animals anymore. Now we can easily trap and release any that are making a nuisance of themselves.

Havahart offers a variety of traps and animal repellents to help safely and humanely control problem animals and pests. We love that they are safe for both our pets and any children nearby. The large Havahart Easy Set Trap that we reviewed measure 32″ long by 10.5″ wide by 12″ high. It offers many nice features such as:

• Set and release with One Hand
• Galvanized rust resistant (that’s mud in my first photo, NOT rust!)
• Body is one continuous piece of machine welded metal
• All interior corners are smooth to prevent animal injury
• Sturdy door locks to keep animal inside
• Patented, safe-lever release is easy to use
• Hand guard between handle and cage body limits interaction with animal
• Designed by professional trappers
• Made in the U.S.A.

Where to buy and how to stay in touch!

Havahart live animal traps are available at www.havahart.com. You can also find many Havahart products at retail stores throughout Canada and the United States. You may also find them on Amazon.com. To keep up to date with promotions and fun new items like this one, check out the HavahartBrand Facebook page, follow @Havahart_brand on Twitter and the HavahartBrand YouTube channel.