Weasel - gruesome detail warning. Need ideas to catch?

[nzpouter]

I may just tighten up my pens. I would rather relocate the weasel than kill it - but I would rather NOT lose anymore birds. I don't miss the rats it eats, that's for sure... Thank you all. 

please don't relocate any predators you trapped.

 

[Gypsi]

I'm told he can get in a hole too small for a golf ball, although the one I saw was
Close to cat size. And that he will be back until I run out of chickens.
Also that it is probably a she with a family to feed. So I guess a lethal trap
Is needed. Raw chicken for bait. If I had caught it alive I would have had animal
Control pick up. I live at the edge of city lmits. Surrounded by grassland and a
Creek. But the one that has found the chickens must be killed.

 

[Hamstery]

Wondering if you had any luck catching it?

 

[Gypsi]

No, I had luck at not losing more birds. Thawing a cull for bait, invasion by daughter and 4 grandkids, plumbing in kitchen sink has been dismantled, reassembled, determined the plug (probably straw from the chick waterer) is in the line a few feet from the house, Drano has failed. Dogs bathed, office rug cleaned and my website is massively overdue for revisions, plus the truck went down. Closed the windows of the screens it can get past, tightened gaps in the main coop, keeping my dogs out later in the evening, and not moving any birds to the apiary coop (which is being designed as secure run, open coop for coolness) My design will take into account rat snakes and weasels, because if I get this one, but it is a mother with young, I've got 4 to 8 more to consider. The apiary lot doesn't have dogs..

Hopefully will get bait out tonight, chicken jerky going in the dehydrator this afternoon. I think the kids are coming back at 5 or so....

Such is life. Got to let the drano work its way out of the drain line before I snake it.

 

[Gypsi]

Setting a rat trap under its entry point in greenhouse. Baiting my smallest, lightest have-a-heart with raw chicken and putting it under the chevy near where it goes over the fence TO the greenhouse.

I have 3 big dogs, which tends to deter visits to my back yard proper, but the greenhouse is attached to my house, and fenced off from the dog area. Making a private path into that area possible. hop, skip and a 6 ft privacy fence with branches that hang over it.

 

[bj taylor]

another predator possibility is skunk. here in Tx that's alot more likely than weasel. that kind of kill doesn't sound like cat to me.

 

[Gypsi]

I have skunks, but I have had skunks for years. Get to be too many neighbor shoots or I trap and city collects. Skunks eat bees - so I have to keep a handle on them.

Worse for the skunk than the chickens - dogs killed one in the backyard 1/1/2009 - heck of a new year. Dogs waited outside 3 days for de-stinking.

At any rate, I don't think I need bait in the rat trap, just leave it below the one entrance to the greenhouse bigger than a golf ball, and don't let the chicks loose in the house.. Got a nice sized rat in it this morning.

 

[amberflea]

please don't relocate any predators you trapped.

I TOTALLY AGREE, why give your problem to someone else...... don't you think it will find another coop and kill someones else's birds...... I think it is very irresponsible to relocate..... it needs to be euthanized.

 

[Ashdoes]

I TOTALLY AGREE, why give your problem to someone else...... don't you think it will find another coop and kill someones else's birds...... I think it is very irresponsible to relocate..... it needs to be euthanized.

Euthanizing a wild animal for doing what it does naturally, when it could be safely relocated to an unpopulated area, seems cruel and unnecessary.
If it can be trapped and moved, why not?
~Ashley

 

[Gypsi]

I used to live in town with a drainage pipe that was once a creek buried in the greenway behind my house. Zero predators. My little housecat did rat patrol for the neighborhood. We are talking hundreds of rats. No chickens though. and no weasels.

If I turn it over to Animal Control it will end up in one of the city parks/wildlife preserve areas, and likely no one will ever know the weasel is there.

I saw one 2 years ago, crossing the road at the end of my street, closest to the creek, and went, "wow, what was that?"
I've had chickens since spring 2010 and this is my first, and hopefully last, weasel attack.

Whether I catch the weasel or not, my pen building skills get finer every year.