AUSTRALIAN MADE
The Otway Sparrow Trap is designed and manufactured in Australia. The galvanized wire mesh is also made in Australia. This trap is built to work and to last for decades, indoors and outdoors.
This wire cage trap is designed and built around the instinctive flocking and feeding habits of sparrows to trap multiple numbers of them daily.
Sparrows are another feral animal introduced to Australia that bred up in big numbers across the country since colonization. They are a pest bird that invades farm grain crops, animal feed and storage bins. They nest and mess in sheds, they mess on outdoor dining tables while scavenging for food and competes with native animals for food, water and nesting. Wild birds carry parasites and disease on their body and in their droppings.
Sparrows are a prey animal and are a feed for big birds of prey. The small sparrow has evolved to fly and feed in big numbers so the odds of an individual on its own of being picked off are reduced. Safety in numbers.
Trapping does not require toxic poison baits which can cause unintended and secondary kills of animals further up the food chain when they eat baits and poisoned carcasses laying around. Trapping also means you know exactly where the trapped animals are. Poisoned animals run off and can die anywhere and not under your control, including the carcasses contaminating water supplies.
OTWAY TRAP DIMENSIONS
Length 900 mm
Width 450 mm
Height 450 mm
Wire mesh 1.6 mm
Weight 9 kg
TRAP FEATURES
INSTRUCTIONS FOR TRAP USE
Place set traps ideally where they are not in public view so they are unlikely to be knocked off. Store in a shed when not in use.
The Otway Sparrow Trap is big because sparrows travel in big numbers. This trap will hold large numbers of sparrows.
- Place the trap where sparrows will not be scared off by other animals or kids and make them comfortable in the shade of a tree or structure if available. Where there are already sparrow droppings or congregating activity will be a likely trap location.
- Then educate them.
- Put food on the ground beside the trap central entrance and inside it to attract them to the trap.
- Remove other nearby sources of food.
- Bread is a good bait as sparrows are hungry grain eaters.
- For the first week, place a pile of bread on the ground, either side of the central entrance to the trap.
- Place more bread on the raised central mesh floor of the trap entrance inside the sheet metal insert and either side of the central sparrow entry hole.
- Slide open the trap door on the end wall and place a pair of bowls inside on the floor of the trap, one containing drinking water and one with lots of bread. Avoid letting this run out.
- Tilt the trap up, enough to slide these bowls to the far end of the trap and then put the trap back to ground level.
- Repeat this with a second pair of bowls to sit inside on the floor of the trap, near the sliding trap door. Leave this sliding door open so sparrows can come and go to build their confidence and associate the trap with food and water.
- Observe that sparrows are taking the bait and keep supplies topped up daily with enough bread and water so that this does not run out.
- If they are taking the bait, give them around three days or more to form the habit. Then start trapping.
- If they are not taking the food at the trap after around a week, move the trap to another site.
- Fill the bowls inside the trap and close the sliding trap door.
- Remove all bread from outside the trap.
- Place a piece of circular bread, just big enough to cover the entrance hole on this raised floor.
- The first sparrow of the day comes in looking for its usual free feed. It pecks at the one piece of bread which drops through the central entrance hole. The sparrow dives in after the food. It happily eats the bread inside the trap. Other sparrows want the same and follow the first sparrow into the trap to get to the food. This is a one-way journey.
- As long as there is enough bread and water inside the trap, more sparrows are likely to join the mob.
- At the end of the day, despatch the trapped sparrows, tip them out through the sliding trap door and bait the trap up with bread and water for the next days catch.
- Keep repeating this routine until all the sparrows are trapped at that location. Move the trap to another location or put it into the shed until the next Sparrow wave appears.
- Avoid leaving hungry sparrows in the trap overnight as the next lot in the morning will not go near the trap.
One way of humanely disposing of feral animals is to cover the trap with animals inside it with sheet plastic or dense fabric and tape the edges over. Insert a garden hose into the fabric and attach the other end to the exhaust pipe of a petrol vehicle. Cold motors produce the most carbon monoxide. Run the stationery motor for a few minutes with exhaust gasses filling the cage. Turn the motor off after a few minutes. The gas puts the animals to sleep, same as a vet doing euthanasia. They never wake up.
GOOD TRAPPING PRACTICE
Decide what you are going to do with any live animal before you start trapping anything.
If you cannot quickly, safely and humanely despatch the trapped animal yourself on the day you trap it, have someone organized nearby who can. Do not dither.
For all live capture traps, check the set traps at least once daily. Good trappers never leave an animal in a trap for a long slow death by exposure, thirst, starvation and heat. There is no need for animal torture.
Record where you place your various traps if you are on acres or if you are a Ranger in a national park so that all traps can be routinely checked and retrieved.
Avoid leaving uneaten pet food, bones, food scraps, grains or unburied livestock carcasses laying around the property as the scent will attract hungry feral animals like the plague.
SPARROW FACTS
BULK TRAP PRICING
Please contact IT'S A TRAP for bulk quantity pricing.
SHIPPING IS ADDITIONAL
Delivery of sparrow traps or orders of mixed trap types is by courier to your door. Traps are shipped from Victoria and New South Wales. Multiple traps will fit on a shipping pallet.
Shipping price is dependent on the size of your order, the overall package size dimensions, total packed weight and your delivery postcode.
Shipping is Australia-wide.
