Good article and seems consistent with what most fish and game agencies say about weasels. They are good guys......until they get into the chicken house and kill everything. Then they are not.
I am also convinced that they are not attracted to the chickens at all. At least not initially. What attracts them is an abundance......read infestation......of either rats or mice in the chicken house. That concentration of vermin is what attracts them, yet once inside, they easily make the transition to killing all the birds.
So if weasels are a concern, best solution is a tight coop with hardware cloth (or my preference, which is 1/2" x 1" 16 gauge cage wire). Even so, I had mice living in the coop, which were attracted to the spilt feed. Mice tunneled their way in. So I switched to a rat proof feeder and the spilt feed problem went away, as did the mice.
