Do I have a weasel or a mink? And how can I catch it?
In late November, something got into our coop containing 1 roo and 9 hens. It killed 4 hens and dragged them out through the open chicken door into their run and took their heads off. Cover is heavy in the run and I only found 2 birds and one head at first. My do found the other two hens days later.
We have radio's playing in the other three areas we have chickens, but we didn't have one in the coop because we thought the radio in the adjacent area was sufficient. We added a radio in the coop and invested in eight solar powered predator deterring flashing red lights.
A week or ten days later, the culprit dug into the coop and killed our roo and three more hens (only one left alive). It dug under the wall just inches away from the flashing red light (we returned them). This time it didn't decapitate any of them, but the only ate neck meat. The coop has a dirt floor (for dust baths) but outside the coop there is concrete pavement on two sides. Three of the birds were partially dragged headfirst into holes at the edge of the coop that go under the concrete pavement outside the coop.
We moved the one surviving bird in with one of our other three flocks, left the coop empty, and started having our dog sleep with the flock housed in the room immediately adjacent to the coop.
The next night it killed a hen in the flock that lived in a converted horse stall in our barn. The next night it killed a hen in our other flock that roosts 16 feet off the ground in the roof trusses of our barn. It chewed up the necks of both of these birds, and it tried to drag both of them away, but the birds were too big to get through the space under the barn door.
I left the last hen killed on the floor in the barn and spent several evenings watching her body and waiting in there with a gun. Once when I cam inside to warm up, the hen was gone when I went out again. It had gone in the barn with lights on and radio playing and dragged her off. My dog later found her a couple hundred feet away and I put her back in the barn. I kept watching with a gun, but again it went in when I wasn't in there and dragged her off. When the dog found her again I buried her.
We opened up the converted horse stall and let that flock join the flock in the surrounding barn. I spent a couple weeks sleeping in the barn, and we put a baby monitor in the barn so we could hear what's going on in there and we could shout back into the monitor if we heard anything suspicious (in hopes of scaring of the varmint with the sound of our voices). I haven't seen the varmint, but I'm sure it's a weasel or a mink. A year and a half ago, one of our dogs killed a big weasel near our pond about 600' from where the chickens are. Since this started, I did see tracks inside the barn in snow that had filtered in between the boards. The tracks were about 2cm diameter.
I made a box about 4 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot out of plywood. I put a piece of 1/4" mesh hardware cloth in the middle. I put a live chicken in the box at night. She's completely protected by the 1/4" mesh hardware cloth and plywood, but if a weasel or mink tries to get to the wire mesh to try to get at her, it would have to cross one of three rat traps set in the open end of the box. The traps have never been tripped. I made a bunch of weasel boxes with rat traps inside and baited them with chicken liver and turkey wings. I've caught mice and shrews, but no weasel or mink.
Does anyone have any idea whether I have a weasel or a mink (we don't have stoats or ferrets in the US) and how I can get rid of it?
In late November, something got into our coop containing 1 roo and 9 hens. It killed 4 hens and dragged them out through the open chicken door into their run and took their heads off. Cover is heavy in the run and I only found 2 birds and one head at first. My do found the other two hens days later.
We have radio's playing in the other three areas we have chickens, but we didn't have one in the coop because we thought the radio in the adjacent area was sufficient. We added a radio in the coop and invested in eight solar powered predator deterring flashing red lights.
A week or ten days later, the culprit dug into the coop and killed our roo and three more hens (only one left alive). It dug under the wall just inches away from the flashing red light (we returned them). This time it didn't decapitate any of them, but the only ate neck meat. The coop has a dirt floor (for dust baths) but outside the coop there is concrete pavement on two sides. Three of the birds were partially dragged headfirst into holes at the edge of the coop that go under the concrete pavement outside the coop.
We moved the one surviving bird in with one of our other three flocks, left the coop empty, and started having our dog sleep with the flock housed in the room immediately adjacent to the coop.
The next night it killed a hen in the flock that lived in a converted horse stall in our barn. The next night it killed a hen in our other flock that roosts 16 feet off the ground in the roof trusses of our barn. It chewed up the necks of both of these birds, and it tried to drag both of them away, but the birds were too big to get through the space under the barn door.
I left the last hen killed on the floor in the barn and spent several evenings watching her body and waiting in there with a gun. Once when I cam inside to warm up, the hen was gone when I went out again. It had gone in the barn with lights on and radio playing and dragged her off. My dog later found her a couple hundred feet away and I put her back in the barn. I kept watching with a gun, but again it went in when I wasn't in there and dragged her off. When the dog found her again I buried her.
We opened up the converted horse stall and let that flock join the flock in the surrounding barn. I spent a couple weeks sleeping in the barn, and we put a baby monitor in the barn so we could hear what's going on in there and we could shout back into the monitor if we heard anything suspicious (in hopes of scaring of the varmint with the sound of our voices). I haven't seen the varmint, but I'm sure it's a weasel or a mink. A year and a half ago, one of our dogs killed a big weasel near our pond about 600' from where the chickens are. Since this started, I did see tracks inside the barn in snow that had filtered in between the boards. The tracks were about 2cm diameter.
I made a box about 4 feet by 1 foot by 1 foot out of plywood. I put a piece of 1/4" mesh hardware cloth in the middle. I put a live chicken in the box at night. She's completely protected by the 1/4" mesh hardware cloth and plywood, but if a weasel or mink tries to get to the wire mesh to try to get at her, it would have to cross one of three rat traps set in the open end of the box. The traps have never been tripped. I made a bunch of weasel boxes with rat traps inside and baited them with chicken liver and turkey wings. I've caught mice and shrews, but no weasel or mink.
Does anyone have any idea whether I have a weasel or a mink (we don't have stoats or ferrets in the US) and how I can get rid of it?
