S & S Controller Kit

Tom and Shelley · Sun Feb 22, 2015 1:02 pm

Has anyone made this kit, and if so... are you happy with the design?

Ed Pace · Sun Feb 22, 2015 10:23 pm

Yes, I have made three of them and they work very well especially in the spring.I have caught a few sparrows but mostly starlings. I built the one that Larry Melcher advertized.

JamesinIA · Sun Feb 22, 2015 10:47 pm

I made mine 7 or 8 years ago and it is a very effective starling trap. When you have martin housing with sreh and the starlings have a hard time getting in them, the controller with a round hole draws them in like a magnet. I have eliminated somewhere around 200 starlings since it was put into action.

Tom and Shelley · Mon Feb 23, 2015 6:28 am

Thank you very much. I made a wire cage repeater a couple of years ago, but it sat on the ground and the teeter totter arm always fouled with something, and got hung up. I really like the one that Larry Melcher makes out of coolers. Plastic does not degrade, and protects trap action well. I did change over from a pellet pistol that was just scaring them, to a 22 rifle... dead on every time, but I can't be around all the time.
Now, if it will warm up... we should have our martins in about five weeks!

EngineerBill · Mon Feb 23, 2015 5:10 pm

I have one that I put up several years ago, last March I filled a 5 gallon bucket each week with Starlings, of course the woods south of my pasture & pond helped in the supply of Starlings. In 7 or so years I have only caught one male martin a SY during late June in 2012. I have it next to my barn so as not to make it attractive to Martins.