Skunk? or Fisher Cat?

[chickivicki]

if you see a fisher cat, be sure not to mess with it. They're nasty mean and equipped to do some serious damage. They are not nocturnal, as generally believed. I had an upclose encounter and do not care do it again. One day, around noontime, there were crows swooping down on an animal attacking one of my hens. I grabbed the nearest thing I could - a broom, I think - and ran to intervene. I remember looking and asking myself, " what is that? Is that a cat?" Well, I got down there... and was three feet away from it, broom raised above my head - ready to swat... when I looked closely at the snarling face staring back at me and realized - it is NOT a cat! That is when I ran away!! lol I think that if I had hit it, it would have attacked me! A fisher cat looks like a long stretched out version of a cat with a bushy tail but low to the ground... the face is flatter, too - but I don't recommend getting close enough to make sure! You can usually hear them at night .... sounds like someone strangling a cat... a scary sound, if you don't know what it is. Fishers live in trees and will usually carry their catch away.

 

[chickivicki]

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

I have a pump bb gun type of thing... 760 pumpmaster 177 caliber pellet/bb repeater by crosman airguns ..... what do you think?

 

[horsejody]

Some pellet guns can be pumped enough to fire almost as hard as a 22. DH saw a possum in the barn one day. The closest thing on hand was my BB/pellet gun. he pumped it up and shot it through the ear. No more possum. Make sure you shoot to kill. Don't shoot to just pi$$ off.

 

[redhen]

how come so may fisher cats in Mass!?? i have them by me also!...we had one in our back yard tree...

 

[Rosalind]

Quote:

The stupid fisher cats were originally trapped to extinction levels in the early 1800s for furs, so the Fish & Game commission decided to re-introduce them to control a plague of porcupines. Now there are really very few porcupines (I haven't seen one ever), but plenty of fishers...so, it worked, but not for poultry keepers...

I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time.

 

[chickivicki]

Of course, it doesn't help that fisher cats are protected in Mass... although the animal control officer was quick to tell me that I could do whatever I had to to protect my livestock.

 

[Faverolle]

Skunks will kill and eat chickens. Skunks can be killed legally in MA, just make sure your 500 feet from a dwelling and 150 feet from road and don't forget that license, lol.
You could trap it but you would want to place cardboard or something similar on the sides and top of the trap. This would reduce the chance it would spray, although it technically is illegal in MA to trap and relocate an animal w/o a permit. Fishers are members of the weasel family and are fairly common in areas that have a substantial amount of woods. Fisher cat is not the correct name but more of a nickname by some.

 

[Biddieacres]

Here is a picture of a fischer from the BYC website under predators.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/LC-FisherCat.html

It says it can kill many chickens at one time. (which I believe is what happened to the Original Post) This is exactly what I saw running through my woods the other day in daylight here in MA. He was a stones throw away and the cattle in the back were all very still staring at it watching it run.

They do live high up in trees as well as burrows in the ground and hollow logs. I hope mine doesn't have a litter of kits. Yikes.