You may see guillotine door beaver traps offered which are heavier, but not stronger, fast but without follow through lock up, more expensive, but not better, that have many limitations when compared to the Swing Door Traps that we use every day in our ADC work and market.
What to look for in choosing the very best beaver traps:
Cage traps should be fully self contained, no external trigger components extending beyond the frame of the trap to catch on other traps in transit in the vehicle or catch on brush while carrying. The best traps will not have a frame or parts that extends beyond the box itself.
Most obvious is that a swing door trap can be set in shallow water and completely hidden. A guillotine door trap extends a foot or two above the outline of the trap making it all but impossible to camouflage.
To hide a guillotine door trap in open water as a swing door trap requires twice the depth of the box.
The power swing door traps can be set in any position, even sideways or upside down. What this means is that a trap that measures 12×18 inches is basically a trap of “two sizes.” Not only will it accommodate a wide 2 foot run as it was designed, but can also be set on its side to fit a narrower 12 inch run, thus the “two sizes in one trap.”
Set upside down these swing door traps have little chance of catching debris that you can see when you place the trap.
In the cool months when freezing is likely, these swing door traps can be set in shallow water, just over a foot. When an inch or two of ice forms the traps are good to go, unlike the guillotine door trap that will freeze in solid. The guillotine requires exactly twice the depth to set as a swing door to accommodate the height of the box and the equal height of the doors above the box.
Guillotine door traps can not be slid into culverts like the sleek powered hinged swing door traps.
Guillotine door traps can jam when the trap is on an angle. A powered swing door trap will work at any angle or position as there is no wrong way to set them.
Guillotine door traps run the risk of picking up brush and sticks that will snag, slow or also jam them, and they do.
Note: Any wire trigger cage trap fitted with a conibear type trigger designed in the late 1950’s for killing body grip traps is far less stable and reliable when compared to the modern swing bar trigger developed specifically for the powered swing door traps. The reason I “seem” to know so much about this trigger is because these triggers were used in my first inventions, “gen one if you will.” We moved on and beyond to develop the all new superior trigger we now have, “gen two in 2010.”
