mink

[lovepolands xox]

I have a problem with mink. It has been killing quite a few of my hens and has injured a few other birds. I don't know how to get rid of it or them. I have found some holes in the hen shed but they have all been sealed up yet it seems to still get in. During Sunday night it got one of my young poulets and she had no head left. Please help!!

 

[Alaskan]

Mink are horrid. (That entire family, stoats, etc.)

You need to have a solid box of hardware cloth for the chickens to sleep in.

In my coop i have solid hardware cloth under the plywood floor and almost two feet up all of the sides. The door needs to fit super tightly.

Mink and stoats can squeeze through the smallest of holes.

I am very sorry for your loss!

 

[lovepolands xox]

They are in a stone shed. It got my cockerel I use for showing and nearly got my peacock since they live together. It managed to get into my duck shed (also a some shed next door to the hens) and attacked but didn't kill. My call drake had bites on his face and a goose when she was younger was attacked on the back of her head and her wings she is OK but can't fold her wings away properly.

 

[Alaskan]

In a stone shed I would line the bottom two or even three feet (depending on how it is getting in) with hardware cloth.

You could do an inside or outside layer of hardware cloth.

An inside layer would be set up like a bathtub liner.

An outside layer might be easier, but don't forget to either bury the edge deeply, or flare it out like a skirt.

I am super sorry for your troubles.


Weasels are horrid!

If you simply can't figure out how to do the hardware cloth (and it needs to be hardware cloth, not a wire with larger holes, those weasels can squeeze themselves super small) then ..... Uh......... I can't think of what kind of animal eats them.... But maybe you could try to trap it.

 

[lovepolands xox]

I don't think its coming in through the ground. For a while I kept finding holes in the concrete floor but I filled them in and I don't know where it is getting in

 

[Alaskan]

They can smush their bodies through the very smallest of spaces.