Confirm This as a Mink?

[Onionflyer]

Happy New Year all!

My Coop/Run is 100 feet from a stream here in west New Jersey. We're about a dozen miles from the Delaware River. The area is semi-rural (people keep horses, cattle, goats, we even have a buffalo ranch in our town). So, there are plenty of rats and mice.

Over the past few months, I picked up what appears to be a mink. I have no experience with them and hope someone can confirm this is likely what I am looking at.

I think the run and coop are secure (it's been 4 years and we have coyotes, raccoons and opossums). The run is 1-inch welded wire mesh with a surround of 1-inch mesh one foot down around the run with a cement cap. The coop is enclosed in 1/2-inch weld wire mesh. Not sure if anything else is needed for mink.

I have two sets of electric fences surrounding the area - the first is a 4-wire 10,000 volt (not visible in the pics) with a low wire about 4 inches off the ground. The second is the poultry netting which is also hot, but it is usually only 3K to 4K and the bottom two strands are not hot. This is not working to deter the mink. Comments are appreciated!

Best,

 

[sourland]

Looks like a mink to me.

 

[townchicks]

Hard to tell the size, but looks larger than a mink, possibly a martin? Same weasel family.

 

[lagrange chicks]

100% mink. Looks like it would be easy to trap. If you have a live trap that opens on both ends cover the top and sides with something that looks natural to the run, even if its old boards to make what looks like a tunnel and put it right tight to the fence. Mink love going through culverts/ tunnels, add a couple chicken feathers in the trap for eye appeal.

 

[GirlsHuntToo]

As a hunter and owner of many unclear of What In the World Is That? pictures, I have gotten pretty good at telling what a surtain critter looks like on a trail camera.
That is a mink - bad news! They can chew through just about anything and are very smart animals. So what would keep most predators out - most likely isn't going to work for this mink. He also will not go away without a fight.

 

[Tahai]

Mink. Last spring, my neighbor caught a mink on her game camera as it chewed through 19 guage hardware cloth to get into her chicken coop. :0 Thankfully, she shared that video the day before I placed my wire order for my "fort knox". I changed my order to 16 guage pvc coated hardware cloth that very day. Fingers crossed that is rugged enough. So far, so good. Another neighbor caught a fishercat on her game camera last week. *fingers crossed* that Fort Knox lives up to it's name.

 

[LuciferRoo]

I am shocked. I would had never expected a small animal to be able to get through hardware cloth.

 

[Onionflyer]

Thanks for the replies all! This is my first encounter with the critter and your experience helped with confirming the ID.