URGENT MINK PROBLEM!!

[Painted Calls]

 

[aart]

They do look to be rather meaty.

 

[2hotchicks]

We put a few out there actually. Weirdest thing ever .. took pictures of the evening we put it out and completely skipped the night.. just got pics of some smoke from the bonfire and then movement from the turkeys in the morning. But we have one out there as of now and should be fine, thanks!

four were 100% daytime kills. Right behind their run.. I was even outside but heard nothing (I was pressure washing).. still suprised i didnt hear anything considering their run is only 100ft from me. The carcasses were left like that as of the same day when we were rounding them up to go in. The rest was either middle of the night or very early morning. My boyfriend said today he found a tunnel that went right under the run, and whatever it was outsmarted us and even dug under the chicken wire that was underneath the coop/run. We live on 150 acre horse farm and there’s so many predators it’s hard to pin point what it is. I swear I saw a dark brown, fluffy tailed, short legged animal run straight into the hay barn and it was at 1 in the afternoon.. coming from the direction of the coop. No idea what the hell that thing was as I only got a quick glance, but it disappeared when I went to look. It’s weird, the only consistent thing with all the carcasses is the missing heads. The second chicken even had an egg in her (look at photo) and whoever killed it left the egg. Also nothing comes back to eat the carcass, as we left it right in front of the camera during the night. We do have foxes, coyotes, groundhogs (I think.. check attachments of photos.. I circled the head of whatever is poking out of the ground).. we have raccoons for sure and have had issues with them last year.. but we’ve been keeping a close eye on the coons and with our experience last time they’ve always left blood and have always eaten the entire carcass. ive found not a drop of blood with these guys. I will say though, I think it is a combination of predators because something is digging, and I also found a guinea wing hanging off a branch which is spooky. Whatever it was it was eating from higher up in the trees.. (coons/hawk I believe). We’ve added so many features to the coop and the run for extra security because of our losses last year (coons ripped the panels off the coop door.. have no idea how). Just lookin for a solution.. my next option is live trap or to shoot them because I have 18 chicks almost ready to go out lol.

I find my 3 dogs to be the best predator deterrents - tons of praise & rewards for chasing off predators & they learn quickly