HI,
I was weeding the vegetable garden yesterday when the wild birds started absolutely shrieking.....on and on. And not just one pair, like they do when babies are fledging and a crow comes around, but LOTS of them, all concentrated in the band of trees between us and the neighbor. I watched, and after a couple of minutes, out into the lawn pops what I think was a weasel. It could have been a fisher, I guess, it was far enough away that I couldn't see the tail and the grass was high enough that I couldn't see the whole body at once. But it did jump through the grass a few jumps, went back into the trees when the birds dive-bombed it, came back onto the lawn, birds chased it back into the trees, finally it went off through the woods up toward the neighbors (judging from the birds' behavior).
It looked about a foot long. It was very dark brown, maybe black. It had a very triangular head. That's about all I could tell clearly, because of the grass being a bit long at the edge of the yard, and because of how far away it was. I think fishers are bigger than a foot long, aren't they? Anyway, I've never seen anything like it near here nor heard of anyone else having a problem. We're pretty rural, and lots of folks have chickens. I'm worried because I saw it in daylight (mid morning) and because the chicken coops are about 200 feet from where it was. I don't worry too much about the laying hens, their coop is pretty secure. But the other coop is not - the wire on the run is "turkey wire", the two inch by four inch openings...and my meat chicks are in there. While both of us were at work, I left the chicks locked in, and can do that as it happens only twice a week, but geez, now I'm worried. We've never had any kind of predator problem, with five dogs, there isn't much that comes around. But this little critter was awfully close to my birds. I don't know where it was headed, whether it knew the chickens were even there (gotta assume it did).
Are weasels diurnal?? I thought they were nocturnal...anyone with weasel family experience got any input? The meat birds will be gone the third week of July, and we planned to move the hens into that coop, thinking that daytime predation is low risk and the birds will be inside at night...now I'm not so sure, and I really can't put hardware cloth on the whole run at this point...don't know what to do...
I was weeding the vegetable garden yesterday when the wild birds started absolutely shrieking.....on and on. And not just one pair, like they do when babies are fledging and a crow comes around, but LOTS of them, all concentrated in the band of trees between us and the neighbor. I watched, and after a couple of minutes, out into the lawn pops what I think was a weasel. It could have been a fisher, I guess, it was far enough away that I couldn't see the tail and the grass was high enough that I couldn't see the whole body at once. But it did jump through the grass a few jumps, went back into the trees when the birds dive-bombed it, came back onto the lawn, birds chased it back into the trees, finally it went off through the woods up toward the neighbors (judging from the birds' behavior).
It looked about a foot long. It was very dark brown, maybe black. It had a very triangular head. That's about all I could tell clearly, because of the grass being a bit long at the edge of the yard, and because of how far away it was. I think fishers are bigger than a foot long, aren't they? Anyway, I've never seen anything like it near here nor heard of anyone else having a problem. We're pretty rural, and lots of folks have chickens. I'm worried because I saw it in daylight (mid morning) and because the chicken coops are about 200 feet from where it was. I don't worry too much about the laying hens, their coop is pretty secure. But the other coop is not - the wire on the run is "turkey wire", the two inch by four inch openings...and my meat chicks are in there. While both of us were at work, I left the chicks locked in, and can do that as it happens only twice a week, but geez, now I'm worried. We've never had any kind of predator problem, with five dogs, there isn't much that comes around. But this little critter was awfully close to my birds. I don't know where it was headed, whether it knew the chickens were even there (gotta assume it did).
Are weasels diurnal?? I thought they were nocturnal...anyone with weasel family experience got any input? The meat birds will be gone the third week of July, and we planned to move the hens into that coop, thinking that daytime predation is low risk and the birds will be inside at night...now I'm not so sure, and I really can't put hardware cloth on the whole run at this point...don't know what to do...
