Challenges of living in the woods with chickens

[Seaslug]

I hear minks are the worst. They will kill your whole flock in one night just for the fun of it, leaving the bodies behind. Not sure if that’s true.

Mink are effective predators, but they do not kill for the fun of it.
Humans are the only animals that kill for fun.
All other species may kill for experience, to eliminate a competitor (for food, habitat, or mates), or for food, but not for fun.
And this is coming from someone who had a mink kill four of her hens.
Yes, the mink killed them and stashed them in the run. But mink must be judged as mink... Most mink, weasels, rats, mice, etc. are able to get into runs/coops because they only require an opening the size of a quarter. These animals are not breaking into an area through such a hole, such a hole is a like a door to these animals. Why shouldn't they go through it? And when that door leads to a bunch of oblivious six+ pound sacks of muscle/dinner that can not get away... and you are a small creature that must struggle for every ounce of protein you can hunt down? It would be ridiculous for these animals to not take advantage of the situation and kill whatever they could manage and cash the excess.
It is so logical, it boggles the mind that humans decided to explain it away by saying that these animals just enjoy killing (I realize that the above poster is simply repeating what he/she has heard and I am not criticizing passing along information or this poster.)
Of course no one wants to lose chickens, but I think I correctly put the loss of my hens on myself and not on the mink.

 

[Carontheroad]

Mink are effective predators, but they do not kill for the fun of it.
Humans are the only animals that kill for fun.
All other species may kill for experience, to eliminate a competitor (for food, habitat, or mates), or for food, but not for fun.
And this is coming from someone who had a mink kill four of her hens.
Yes, the mink killed them and stashed them in the run. But mink must be judged as mink... Most mink, weasels, rats, mice, etc. are able to get into runs/coops because they only require an opening the size of a quarter. These animals are not breaking into an area through such a hole, such a hole is a like a door to these animals. Why shouldn't they go through it? And when that door leads to a bunch of oblivious six+ pound sacks of muscle/dinner that can not get away... and you are a small creature that must struggle for every ounce of protein you can hunt down? It would be ridiculous for these animals to not take advantage of the situation and kill whatever they could manage and cash the excess.
It is so logical, it boggles the mind that humans decided to explain it away by saying that these animals just enjoy killing (I realize that the above poster is simply repeating what he/she has heard and I am not criticizing passing along information or this poster.)
Of course no one wants to lose chickens, but I think I correctly put the loss of my hens on myself and not on the mink.

Yes Seaslug, poor choice of words, more accurate wording would be “for no apparent reason”. There is always a reason for everything in life though, it’s just a figure of speech. Thanks for enlightening all of us on mink mentality. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one although they are in my parts. Is it true that they take the heads off the chickens? Have you noticed if they come back for their stash? Do they really try to hide/stash them a bit in the run or are they just strewn all over? Seems to me most animals kill what they can eat in the short term only. Off the top of my head, I can only think of spiders and their webs as another multi killer and their prey may still be alive in the web (not sure).

In the same vein, I actually felt sorry for a rat this past winter that we found in the coop. He was more afraid of us than I was of him and went running for the automatic coop door but we had closed it and he went splat like a belly flop right on it. We chased him out through the main door but a few days later he came back and so we trapped and killed him. Even then though, I thought poor rats, they need somewhere warm to sleep too.

That’s how I’m feeling about roosters. Poor roosters, no one wants them! I’m generalizing, not literally no one, lots of rooster lovers on this forum.