Surviving Minnesota!

[Bogtown Chick]

Ed's back!
Yes Ralphie might be having his Roto- rootering done in which nurse Judy will have her toughest patient.

Do you know if Ralphie got his numbers down on his birds before surgery? Or did he have 200 birds to feed and water for Judy?

For Furry preds:
We also have installed a motion light right at the coop entrance that flips on if anything walks up to the coop. Like a front porch light. Solar/battery under $20 from walmart. I think this helps a ton.
I also think dogs need to stay on their own property. And it's a bit unfortunate the lab got into poison like that. But dogs do sniff things out. This poison was sitting on plates I guess in the other yard. My dog is a bit roamy. We do not leash our dogs out here in the boonies like in towns unless it's deer hunting season. Now. They get free rein on my property. She also helps with predators I think. But I guess she can't if she's in the house sleeping at night.

 

[destiny_56085]

Good Morning! I'm still alive and just haven't been on here in a while. This new format hates my phone. So the only times I do log on here now is when I'm on the desktop in the house. Weather has been so nice down here that I haven't been in much...

Here's the low down on what's been happening out at our farm. About 6 weeks ago I was scheduled to have my yearly NPIP inspection. Had all my pens freshly cleaned and ready to go. The day before the vet was to come out I had a mink come in and wipe out every single one of my adult white silkies and just about all the blacks. This included over 40 top birds... UGhhh losing an overall open show winner pissed me off. So I moved the remaining birds back to the far pens that not even a sparrow can get in. Cement floors, plywood 2' up, welded wire to ceiling, and chicken wire over the top of welded wire. Well 3 days later the dang critter chewed up through the floor boards where the old gutters are covered with 2x6"'s. Went out to find every single one of my Bohemian pouters and some polish dead. I brought all the remaining silkies and polish into my house in town. Cocks are holed up in my basement and hens in the garage. The faverolles and standard cochins were left to run since I simply didn't have enough space for those too. I've got 3 guys running traps out there and so far have managed to get 1 female raccoon that was obviously nursing and 1 mink so far. I think my overall loss of birds ranges somewhere between 80-100. I just know there was so many that 1 week alone that we had to take the tractor to bury all of them.

As of today...about 6 weeks later, there are still fresh holes being chewed up into the empty pens and yesterday I found a couple puddles of blood, but no carcasses. I'm down to about 5 of the standard cochins and maybe 1 adult pair and maybe 6-7 pairs of the juvenile faverolles, and maybe 5-6 easter eggers out there. My silkies and polish are still holed up in house in XL dog crates. It makes ALOT more work with all those individual pens. Plus I have all my chicks that were in there growing like weeds too. The state vet called and wanted to schedule my inspection now and said I have til first week of July to get it done.... I told her to scrap that piece of paper for the next year at least. I'm not moving the rest of these out there til that other mink is gone for sure. Its a good reason to cut down on a few breeds where I now only have a few birds. I don't mind doing PT testing just to go to a show. I've got too much of a jumbled mess right now to comply with any of their NPIP stuff though.

 

[Cebarmlds]

Wow Destiny that a huge loss, sorry! hope you catch all the varmints responsible.

 

[MNChickMom]

Layers - Great Job!

Destiny - Oh my Goodness... I am terribly sorry for your horrendous loss.

 

[bobbi-j]

Good Morning! I'm still alive and just haven't been on here in a while. This new format hates my phone. So the only times I do log on here now is when I'm on the desktop in the house. Weather has been so nice down here that I haven't been in much...

Here's the low down on what's been happening out at our farm. About 6 weeks ago I was scheduled to have my yearly NPIP inspection. Had all my pens freshly cleaned and ready to go. The day before the vet was to come out I had a mink come in and wipe out every single one of my adult white silkies and just about all the blacks. This included over 40 top birds... UGhhh losing an overall open show winner pissed me off. So I moved the remaining birds back to the far pens that not even a sparrow can get in. Cement floors, plywood 2' up, welded wire to ceiling, and chicken wire over the top of welded wire. Well 3 days later the dang critter chewed up through the floor boards where the old gutters are covered with 2x6"'s. Went out to find every single one of my Bohemian pouters and some polish dead. I brought all the remaining silkies and polish into my house in town. Cocks are holed up in my basement and hens in the garage. The fact verolles and standard cochins were left to run since I simply didn't have enough space for those too. I've got 3 guys running traps out there and so far have managed to get 1 female raccoon that was obviously nursing and 1 mink so far. I think my overall loss of birds ranges somewhere between 80-100. I just know there was so many that 1 week alone that we had to take the tractor to bury all of them.

As of today...about 6 weeks later, there are still fresh holes being chewed up into the empty pens and yesterday I found a couple puddles of blood, but no carcasses. I'm down to about 5 of the standard cochins and maybe 1 adult pair and maybe 6-7 pairs of the juvenile faverolles, and maybe 5-6 easter eggers out there. My silkies and polish are still holed up in house in XL dog crates. It makes ALOT more work with all those individual pens. Plus I have all my chicks that were in there growing like weeds too. The state vet called and wanted to schedule my inspection now and said I have til first week of July to get it done.... I told her to scrap that piece of paper for the next year at least. I'm not moving the rest of these out there til that other mink is gone for sure. Its a good reason to cut down on a few breeds where I now only have a few birds. I don't mind doing PT testing just to go to a show. I've got too much of a jumbled mess right now to comply with any of their NPIP stuff though.

Oh, no! So sorry for your losses! Mink can be tricky to catch. Glad you got one of them so far.

 

[BantyChooks]

Oh, no! So sorry for your losses! Mink can be tricky to catch. Glad you got one of them so far.

Minks are evil. One killed my ducks... I saw it hiding under a pallet, grabbed a shovel, and bashed the little jerk to bits.

 

[bobbi-j]

Minks are evil. One killed my ducks... I saw it hiding under a pallet, grabbed a shovel, and bashed the little jerk to bits.

We had one coming into the coop last winter. Fortunately is was a young dumb one and easy to catch...

 

[BantyChooks]

We had one coming into the coop last winter. Fortunately is was a young dumb one and easy to catch...

Dumb ones are always nice.

 

[Bogtown Chick]

Destiny those are horrific losses. I'm so sorry. Mink are sleek and slanky. Very difficult predator. We had a very small weasel once. I think my rooster took it on a bit. It was winter and the flock was contained in the run. I saw blood dripping on his leg one day. I think the weasel was too small for him. But what that weasel did do was take down my mouse population in the run. I'd see holes in the hay each morning I went out there. Birds locked up in the coop at night. We saw it one morning and we fired a round at it but I don't think we got it...and probably scared it off though. As no more bleeding legs and a return of the mousies. LOL.

 

[destiny_56085]

Hard part about the mink is that they want blood and the kill is fun for them. So far the traps haven't been much luck because they want live birds. Same goes for the poisons... We have several types of traps: the regular live traps in several sizes, the box traps, pvc traps with claw type traps in them, and more conibear traps down under in the gutters. We got that 1 after the cattle were put back out on the pasture that wraps around the back north and east sides of the farm. It must have been enough to scare it back in the barn. We even delayed getting more of the hay loaded in the back barn til last week to eliminate hiding places. As Bogtown said, you see holes in the hay and the mice/rat population disappears. They can get through holes as big as a 50 cent piece. Frustrating! I had enough young silkies to repopulate. I was just one of very few breeders on the Bohemians and I was only one that I know of with yellows. Ughhh