Weasel - gruesome detail warning. Need ideas to catch?

[Gypsi]

I've seen the weasel slipping across the back road 2 years ago, brown, not the right color or movement for a cat, legs too short, long tail, so when I googled last year I found it easily - long-tailed weasel. It was cool weather when I was walking the dogs and saw it in the distance,
But it's been a couple of years and I've forgotten. I have a creek that is dry in summer and woods / bottom land near me. The backroad backs up to grazing land that borders the woods/creek area.

I could research, but do you know when their breeding season is? My attacks started in late June early July last year I think.

Gypsi

 

[bruceha2000]

I could research, but do you know when their breeding season is? My attacks started in late June early July last year I think.

Gypsi

Mate summer, deliver Spring. The babies leave the mother at 7-8 weeks. Given that, your attack start dates and their territory size, sounds like someone left home and found your place.

http://www.nhptv.org/natureworks/longtailedweasel.htm

Bruce

 

[Gypsi]

Thank you.

I'm still not assuming it's forever gone. Given the wildlife count around here I need good fencing anyway, but for weasels and things that can and do climb, I need really tight chicken pens. Free Range is out of the question except within the fence and supervised, I've lost 4 cats to coyotes in the last 10 years, and I have 50 mph traffic not far away.. Hawks, etc.

 

[WhiskiRanch]

I'm so sorry you are having to put up with losing your flock. We had skunk issues last summer as well as ferral cats. We set live traps up and managed to trap 3 skunks and 1 cat. All were euthenized. Very difficult to relocate them in our area unless we go way up into the hills where the coyotes would get them anyways. We still have one big grey tomcat that we are trying to get. He is smart though. Will take off before we can even open the door to get him. Last week, I had a friendly black cat lurking around my coop. She seemed to be someones pet so we just scared it off using the pellet gun. I don't want to kill someones pet but I don't want them near my chickens either.

 

[Gypsi]

funny, I've only MAYBE lost a chick to a feral cat one time and that is when I left a ladder near my run when it wasn't quite closed at the top. I have feral cats all over. I don't shoot them, I get them fixed. They kill weasels and rats, and really don't bother my birds at all.

 

[WhiskiRanch]

I hate having to do it but these cats get dumped on the ditch behind our house and the very few that survive the coyotes end up trying to tear into my coop. My horses keep the coyotes away. if they weren't a nucense, I would leave them be but some are as bad as racoons when it comes to destruction

 

[canesisters]

I haven't read all the posts so I may have missed this if it's already been suggested..
But have you considered electric poultry fencing? I don't know how much space you'd have to cover so the cost may be out of reach, but it would seem that while you're waiting to catch the little bugger, you might be able to deter or even direct it's movements by electrifying a good bit of your perimeter.

 

[Gypsi]

Well people dump cats out here too, but I feed a bit of dog chow on my front porch, and I trap them and get them fixed so they don't reproduce, and the one that I got fixed 2 years ago kinda deters the others out of my yard.

You do what you want, but personally I like cats better than people, so I don't kill them.

And they have pulled some nice sized rats out of my garden. The alternative is a pet rat snake or a pet weasel, and I really don't want one. I've already killed the rat snake. Haven't got the weasel yet, but since I haven't seen him since last summer, maybe the feral cats got him. Now wouldn't that be good karma.

 

[BethanyS]

just set 3 BIG rat traps in front of the dog creat door after i locked the birds up.few nights ago i forgot to put a board in front like I had been and 1 of my hens ended up with a bald spot on her neck. I also noticed a small spot of grass dug up on the ground next to the chick tractor this morning. fingers crossed! still looking to barrow a better trap

 

[Gypsi]

I keep a rat trap in the greenhouse where the weasel slipped in when the chicks were in it. Have caught 3 large rats in it so far. before I closed the window for winter. This stuff is pretty interesting. I think I'm going to build a barn owl nesting box and hope to get one to move in.
A weasel is the same size as a rat... I do not like to use rat poison because my dogs are more likely to catch and eat a rat that is sickly from poison.

From an Audobon society article:

“We work particularly with barn owls because they’re one of the few raptors that are almost nonterritorial,” says Godbe. “So if there’s enough food, you can have almost as many owls as owl boxes. And we advocate for other predators—coyotes, foxes, mountain lions, badgers, skunks, bobcats, raccoons, opossums. WildCare, a rehab facility in San Rafael and our partner organization, tests birds and mammals. I was shocked to learn that 79.1 percent of the animals it tested were positive for rodenticides. We’re killing off the natural rodent control.”
Of course, natural rodent control is not always available in heavily developed areas. Nor does it help much if rodents are multiplying inside your house. But that doesn’t mean you need weapons of mass destruction. Safe alternatives include single- and multiple-entrance snap traps, electrocuting traps, glue traps (provided you use them only indoors and frequently dispatch stuck rodents), and even first-generation baits with these active ingredients: chlorophacinone, diphacinone, diphacinone sodium salt, war-farin, and warfarin sodium salt.
Then there’s the “better mouse trap.” You take a metal rod, run it through holes drilled in the center of both lids of an emptied tin soup can so the can becomes a spinning drum. Fasten both ends of the rod to the top of a plastic bucket via drilled holes. Coat the can with peanut butter, and fill the bucket with water and a shot of liquid soap (to break the surface tension and thus facilitate quicker, more humane drowning). Mice and rats jump onto the can, and it spins them into the water. The first time I deployed the device in my New Hampshire fishing camp, it killed 37 mice between Labor Day and Thanksgiving.
Not only are these alternatives safer for people, pets and wildlife, they are, in the long run, more effective because they don’t take out the mammals and birds that keep rodents in check. With second-generation poisons you’ll get a spectacular initial kill. But a year or two later rodents will come storming back, as Jeannine Altmeyer can attest. You’ll then be fighting a war without allies.