will be keeping chickens in back country...neighbor reports weasel?

[Sore Thumb Suburbanite]

My dad just bought a great spread inland from San Diego in the foothills. Its basically wild land, no fences, sparse human population and has everything save bears, on the menu, I mean property. Just got done talking to the neighbors who don't keep fowl anymore and they said they gave up after dealing with various predators after the death of every last one of their chickens in one night. They had 6 chickens that all had the back of their heads dug into...or as they said it...they had holes in the back of their heads. They said it was probably a weasel or something like that since the chickens weren't eaten, just killed.

I plan on fixing up the coop already on the property and wanted to know how to avoid the same trauma with the flock I 'll be keeping there for my dad. Was it a weasel like animal that would do that to chickens and why?

 

[tree48]

Chicken wire under the run too. This should keep weasel out. Make sure coup n run r buttoned up tight. No worries

 

[CedarAcres]

That sounds like a weasel. A weasel one of my families entire flocks a long time ago. He tried to come back for the rest too! Except they caught him.. and now he's stuffed on our shelf. Lots of chicken wire around everything. Make sure there are no gaps anywhere or weak spots they can break through. Once that one weasel was gone, never had another issue with them. When the weasel got ours, it just bit their heads and killed them all. We know it was a weasel since we caught it.

 

[aart]

Weasels will go right thru chicken wire, hexagonal opening are about 1".
You need to put 1/2" x 1/2" hardware cloth on all openings of the coop to protect from weasels, will stop other vermin also.

 

[Mattemma]

Congrats on the property! Avoid chicken wire for keeping predators at bay.It is only good for keeping chickens in place. Small mesh welded wire is your best bet.Make sure the mesh can not be easily pulled away from the structure.

Those poor chickens.What a way to go.

 

[Sore Thumb Suburbanite]

I like hardware cloth, it seems to be the best option for prettymuch everything. The nieghbors there didn't sound like they put too much thought into their coop by what they were telling me about pests and squirrels... I think I'll tend toward overkill and make sure everything is impenetrable. I don't even want to deal with mice. I am going to look up weasels now because I wouldn't have thought they lived thereabouts... I guess I need more exposure to the area to get a feel for the wildlife. Dad was there on Tuesday and found 2 rattlesnakes... geeze.

 

[blucoondawg]

Weasels can be easily trapped as well. Build a wooden box with a 1" hole in it for the weasel to crawl through, but in a large Victor type rat trap and bait with some good fresh bloody liver. Weasels like crawling into small openings and the liver will be a good attractor.