Ever have a mink chew through chicken wire?

[bobbi-j]

We got away with a run of chicken wire with some welded wire for years; lucky, you bet! Any upgrade is better than no upgrade. We have weasels and mink around here, and so far have lost maybe one bird to them, once.
Other predators have been much worse here, but that could change any time. Having the birds in a good coop at night makes the most difference, usually.
Mary

The mink attacks I’ve had, I lost several birds in one night. The one time I had a weasel, it killed over a dozen 4 week old chicks. That morning, I hadn’t been out to the coop yet, and we had visitors. One had never seen baby chicks before, so I invited her to come out to the coop and see them. I opened the door, and the floor was littered with dead birds! Oops - welcome to life in the country!

 

[aart]

I am wondering if anyone here has had that experience.

I’m wondering if anyone has actually had a mink chew through chicken wire.

Guessing you'll get lots of advice and stories,
but slim chance you'll get a first hand answer to this specific question.

I would think if they are very, very hungry they could.

I have a roll of chicken wire that I can use.

If you've got it, put it up.
Hopefully you won't come back and say "yes, mink can and will chew thru chicken wire".

 

[gtaus]

The thing is, I have a roll of chicken wire that I can use. Farming being what it is right now, I can’t go out and spend money on hardware cloth. It’s just not in the budget.

I agree with @Folly's place that any upgrade is better than no upgrade. Depending on how much chicken wire you have, you could half-overlap the wire to reduce the chicken wire openings from 1 inch down to about 1/2 inch.

I still think your best bang for the dollar is to upgrade your chicken coop defenses and lock the girls up at night.

 

[bobbi-j]

I agree with @Folly's place that any upgrade is better than no upgrade. Depending on how much chicken wire you have, you could half-overlap the wire to reduce the chicken wire openings from 1 inch down to about 1/2 inch.

I still think your best bang for the dollar is to upgrade your chicken coop defenses and lock the girls up at night.

If I close the pop door, the coop is tight. But I am not a morning person, so I leave the pop door open so they can get out to the run in the morning. Please don't judge me.

I'll try to overlap it. That's a good idea.

 

[bobbi-j]

Guessing you'll get lots of advice and stories,
but slim chance you'll get a first hand answer to this specific question.

I would think if they are very, very hungry they could.

If you've got it, put it up.
Hopefully you won't come back and say "yes, mink can and will chew thru chicken wire".

We have enough wildlife around here - small critters like mice, voles, moles, frogs, muskrats, pheasants and ducks - they really don't NEED to eat my chickens. Hopefully they find it to be too much work to chew through the chicken wire.

 

[gtaus]

If I close the pop door, the coop is tight. But I am not a morning person, so I leave the pop door open so they can get out to the run in the morning. Please don't judge me.

No judging from me. I'm not a morning person either, I shut the pop door at sunset and don't open it back up until about 10 am in the morning. At first I thought I had to get up at the crack of dawn to let the chickens out, but, I read somewhere that it was better to leave the hens in the coop until later in the morning so that they lay their eggs before going outside to the run. It works for me and I let the chickens out on my schedule.

Having said that, a little background might be worth mentioning. I live in northern Minnesota and built my coop about 2X as big as needed for my small backyard flock of 10 chickens. I have both their food and water in the coop itself 24/7. This past winter, my chickens did not venture out of the coop into the run for almost 3 months. They did quite well and survived their first winter. Anyway, I now realize that I don't have to worry too much about getting up early to let the girls out of the coop because I know they do quite well in the coop itself. If I had to go out of town for a few days, I'd just fill up the waterer and feeder and know that they should be OK for at least a week locked up tight in their coop. My feeder and waterer hold about 10 days supply before they empty.

Point is, shutting the pop door is the cheapest and most effective way I have to secure my birds from predators and I personally don't worry about how late in the morning I might get around to opening the pop door. My birds will do just fine in their coop.

 

[bobbi-j]

Point is, shutting the pop door is the cheapest and most effective way I have to secure my birds from predators and I personally don't worry about how late in the morning I might get around to opening the pop door. My birds will do just fine in their coop.

You are absolutely correct. My coop isn’t big enough for their big waterer, so that’s out in the run. Being in western Minnesota, my chickens also spend about 3 months in their coop every year. Feed is in there year round, heated water dish in the winter. I could leave my chickens in their coop/run for about a week in the summer if I had to. Longer if they had two waterers.

 

[Annes country gard]

My strategy was to build a Fort Knox coop and lock my chickens up every night. I built my pop door so that I cannot open it myself from the outside, so I hope that any mink, weasel, racoon, etc... would not be able to open the pop door either.

Chicken wire is basically only good for keeping chickens in the run, it will not stop a predator from chewing/tearing through that wire and getting after your chickens.

If you suspect a mink is snooping around your coop, maybe a live trap with bait could solve the problem. Certainly less expensive than buying 1/2 inch hardware cloth or adding an electric fence. It's always a balance between how much risk you can take and how much you can afford to beef up your anti-predation measures.

I have no love for minks/weasels as they attacked my rabbits when I was a young child and killed many of them just for fun.

I placed a small Sentinel coop (link below) inside a large chicken-wire pen and run, and have had no problems. I close the door each night and put boards over the door latches. We have abundant and horrible predictors, air & ground, but I've had no problems with this method.
Link to chicken coop photo...
https://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/p...qpc2VXwJM21wyyIEQTHWdJb971IbDMAaAmIgEALw_wcB#

 

[gtaus]

I placed a small Sentinel coop (link below) inside a large chicken-wire pen and run, and have had no problems. I close the door each night and put boards over the door latches.

Yeah, I put my money into fortifying my coop. I lock my chickens up every night, too. My run uses 2X4 inch wire, so any mink or weasel would have no problem getting into the run. But the coop is locked up tight and, so far, no attack in 3+ years.

 

[Egghead_Jr]

No harm in trying. You already have the chicken wire lying around so might as well give it a shot. Attaching to the inside of welded wire I assume.

We get a mink every other year it seems. They follow the Spring rain filled brook up to near our house. They are hard to shoot and unlike weasel they'll attack during the day. I've had to shoo one off the back of a breeder cock before. If you can disrupt them during the first massacre and leave any carcass where it lays it makes shooting them a lot easier. They'll come back within an hour to start pulling the carcass away. Decent .22 pellet gun, comfy chair and a thermos of coffee with some patients takes care of them. I've taken out two.