Havahart 1081 Live Animal Professional Style One-Door Large Raccoon, Small Dogs, and Fox Cage Trap-Made in the USA

The media could not be loaded. A raccoon I have been hand feeding decided to make his home in my attic by removing some flashing around an air duct. He had to go. This is my second Havahart trap.First of all, this cage is huge. Getting it inside, out of the box and setup was not that easy. The instructions are locked inside of the cage, so there is no way to view them and I could not determine how to open the cage. So, before I used it, I had to go to YouTube and type in Havahart 1081 and watch a short video, which really helped. After the 30 second video, no instructions needed.The raccoon was sitting outside the backdoor waiting for me to feed it. I got the cage ready and got my video camera. Before I was ready with the camera, the raccoon was already in the cage, eating cat food and the trap sprung. Less than a few minutes, I had accomplished my goal. The raccoon was safely caught and ready to be relocated.Ease of setup: Difficult because the instructions are locked inside of the trap. Once you know how to open and set it, it is easy.Ease of releasing the animal: Not easy and unsafe. There is no way to release the animal except for the way you set the trap, so you must stick your fingers through the cage where the critter is to release it. If you turn the cage on end with the door up in the air and the trip plate at the ground, the animal should slide/go to the trip plate end, then open the door carefully, set the cage down and move way.Build: Huge, heavy, cumbersome. This trap eliminates some flaws in other models that will allow the animal to easily escape. This unit is not easily turned over because of the size. There is a hook for hanging bait that is easily moved and enough space behind the trip plate to place food. If the bait is too big to go through the wire cage, then getting food into the long cage and behind the trip plate will not be easy. There is a double handle on top for lifting with a metal shield to protect your hand from an angry critter.Considerations: Once the animal is caught, you will need a truck to move the critter. It might fit in a large trunk area with the trunk lid strapped. I doubt it would fit in the backseat of a car unless the backseat is very spacious. The edges of the cage are sharp and rough and could easily rip car seats or cause injury to a person. Also, with an upset critter pacing back and forth in this cage, it makes it much harder to handle. One large, strong person can do it but it is not easy.This model works much better and is built much better than the smaller model. Setting it is much easier once you know how with much less chance of false tripping or failure. Be sure to read the measurements before ordering. It is as big as a moderate/large sized coffee table.Click Full Screen, X in lower right corner, for best view of video.****************Update 7/31****************I have caught 13 raccoons, mostly babies. I have also caught the same squirrel numerous times (he knows I will let him go).

Brilliant in its simplicity. We have had "someone" decimating our suet block holders for a week now. We set our new XL trap up last evening and at 4:00 this morning, caught the "perp", a raccoon. We relocated him/her several miles away and hope this solves the problem of the disappearing suet blocks. It is a perfect size for these larger raccoons and possums. Very pleased with it. One question though; what is the spare piece we found for? Big hook at one end and smaller hook at the other?

I guess it's too much to ask to have a metal product arrive without damage. The shipping boxes (plural) that it arrived in appear to be undamaged. But the trap/cage arrived pretty bent. See photos.It's probably still usable, and I'm pretty handy at fixing metal cages. But gees. Why can't the manufacturer insure higher quality?Here we are almost in the year 2020 and the human race cannot establish even the most basic of quality control or metal product durability.Until Havahart can get their manufacturing, materials, and quality control together... I cannot recommend this product. I mean... come on people.UPDATE: The animal ate the bait and didn't set off the trap several times already. The trip/trigger mechanism is too flimsy to operate correctly... even after fiddling with it ad nauseum.Im surprised Amazon allows this garbage to be sold. Alibaba, yes. Amazon, no.I have included some photos. One photo shows the bait was eaten (hanging bag) and trap not tripped. I've used bait in a bowl, bait on a plate, bait hanging from hook.ANOTHER UPDATE:The trigger design and mechanism are so incredibly horrible, that I replaced it with my own fishing line trigger mechanism.I had far too many critters stealing the bait and not tripping the floor-plate-activated trigger.I put bait sandwiched between two 5x5 inch pieces of hardware cloth (a metal mesh). The mesh held the bait.Then I hung the baited mesh from some yellow fishing line on one end, and attached the other end of the fishing line to the little metal factory-installed door lever that holds the trap door into it's spring-ready position.When the critter pulls on the bait (encased in hardware cloth) it pulls on the string, which in turn pulls the trap door lever holder, which releases the trap door to close. This setup is virtually fail proof now.I also cut the metal cage wire clips on the bait end (the side opposite the trap door) so I could access the inside of the cage without having to crawl my self up into the trap to place or manipulate the bait.With my modification, I could simply open up the bait end of the cage easily like a little door, and place the bait, then close the little door. I used some little key chain clips (see photos) to keep the newly created bait-side "door" securely closed when I'm not using it. I think I used 10 -12 of the key chain clips spaced about 2-3 inches apart on the cage.I'll attach some additional photos that illustrate my modifications. The little factory metal clips that hold the cage walls together are terrible, so I added some plastic zip ties for extra strength... including the hing of the trap door itself.With these $5-$10 worth modifications I made to it, the trap works well. I'm not going to give it more stars because its such a poorly designed product from the factory.I have caught a few critters in it since my mods.