Lost almost all my flock

[Susan12]

I'm soo sorry I hope you catch the rotten varmint.

 

[janiedoe]

What you described is the signature move of a weasel, mink or one of the cousins. They are one of natures most ferocious killers. Normally they confine their activities to rodent control, but will do the same to your birds. They don't kill for fun, but instead are hard wired to attack and kill anything that moves, so once they get started they continue until there is not much left moving. The way they kill is the most efficient way possible.....by severing the spine at the back of the neck. So bite marks there....sometimes so ferocious they rip the whole head off, so it seems they may be licking the blood, and may with some. You may also find small marks under the wings......where they dug in their toes to hang on to the wildly flailing victim until they are able to kill it.

BTW, what often attracts them to your birds is not the birds, but rodents in the form of an abundance of rats and mice that are there for the feed, etc. A good reason to watch for and prevent rodents if you live in weasel country.

Best and only way to keep them out is to limit access. Weasels are designed to go down into rodent tunnels, so they can get through anything the size of a quarter. So that means hardware cloth all around, including the top as they can climb like a squirrel as easy as they can tunnel.

If you want to get that one, you can trap it. Do a search for weasel box traps. Larger version for minks, etc. uses a body grip trap in place of the rat trap.

That was very informative. Thank you I had never heard this before. I just thought weasels were mean. I can be slightly more empathetic with the weasel now that I know they kill rats.

 

[cmom]

They don't get too close to the coops because they know there is a hot wire.