Skunk? or Fisher Cat?

[chickivicki]

Hoping you can help! I have lost 5 hens... very sad! I find them eaten... from the breast.... one was only wings and feet. 8(( I was thinking it was a fisher cat until I saw a skunk in my coop! Still not sure how it's getting in!! I'm thinking that I need to get rid of the skunk. I don't have legal access to a gun to shoot it.... I'm looking for suggestions....

 

[Biddieacres]

That is so sad. So sorry to hear that.

Your local feed should have a trap. Maybe you could do that and call animal control officer once you have it in the trap. I am not sure but maybe someone with more experience with this will post.

The other thing is do you have a lock on the coop door and pop doors? You might need to fasten down the hatches and the run if you have one.

edited to say I am in MA also and I think I saw a fisher cat in my yard today. I couldn't believe it.

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Air rifles are not legally "guns".

http://www.gamousa.com/family.aspx?familyID=37

 

[tim_TX]

No gun? Has Taxachusetts really gone that far? How do you protect you family in an emergency? The supreme court has ruled that police are under no obligation to protect any individual, just society in general. Perhaps you know somebody with a gun?

You can catch the skunk in a live trap outside your coop using canned cat food as bait. See if your county animal control will pick it up if you catch one. Alternatively, maybe your local police department or sheriff would dispatch it for you. If not, then you could just let it expire in the cage although thats pretty cruel.

Perhaps a better solution is to tie a long rope to the live trap and set it up on couple of 2x4s over a large tank of water, such as a livestock water tank or even a child's swimming pool. After catching the critter pull the rope so that the cage falls in the water.

 

[tim_TX]

Perhaps most important, if you decide to trap it, make sure that its far enough from the front of your coop that you don't get sprayed when you go to do your morning chicken chores. Many books claim they can spray 15-20 feet, but I have shot them in on a crisp still winter morning and heard the spray hitting snow packed ice as far as 50-60 feet away. Thats why I suggest the long rope if you go the trap and drown route.

 

[chickivicki]

I can get a gun but only after sending over $100 for a class and then more money for a FID card.... blah blah.... they get you coming and going! I do know people with guns - I live on the NH border where they live free or ( or as I say, and! lol ) die. But, I would rather not shoot it - thinking the neighbors might freak. Was thinking of the trap and swim method but do NOT want to get sprayed!! Was wondering if there was a poison alternative? Also, want to be sure it's the skunk... I always thought they were egg eaters and not chicken killers...???

 

[tim_TX]

Skunks will certainly kill chickens!

The problem with poison is that it is non-selective, so you are just as likely [ probably more likely ] to poison your neighbor's cat than the skunk. In many locales, the use of poison can be prosecuted as animal cruelty.

 

[chickivicki]

will an air gun kill a skunk? I was thinking it wouldn't.... now - I have one of those!

 

[abluechipstock]

my friend was 9 months pregnant and found a opossum in her coop, she stabbed it with a pitchfork and beat it to death with a shovel, her husband shot the skunk and hawk that was killing chickens, sorry about your loss

 

[Dread Pirate Roberts]

Quote:
The ones in that link can. The ones at Wal*Mart...not so much.