Will Be Testing Ways to Keep Predators Off Chickens

[centrarchid]

Another thought.......if you have help / time / resources, while the rest of this is going on, it would be good to be able to find and follow travels routes coon, mink and otters are using to get to these raceways (and ponds) from wherever it is they come from. That is a prelude to a trapping program if the other methods are not effective and farmers want them gone.

But, if you are using this assemblage of varmints to research methods and equipment, and purpose is not simply to end the carnage, then that is another story too.

Pathways are obvious. We they are coming from multiple directions. Mink likely moved around a lot between muskrat burrow systems surrounding more than a couple hundred ponds. Raccoons have three wooded areas to be denning in. Raceways are down hill about about 30 ponds and uphill of a decent sized creek. Otters using everything. Setup very different from my place of work where we have only 20 ponds and a river the otters use as a highway.

Trapping is not going to be done first, as we know the process cost time and money. Having a professional come out cost a few hundred dollars each time.

At this point I am not going to call it carnage, rather operating cost we want to lower. Otherwise we be putting a price tag on what a pair of Bald Eagles is doing when raising 3 chicks that hunt area all day long every day.

 

[Molpet]

Any updates?

 

[centrarchid]

Any updates?

Farm where test to be down off limits to me until someone gets over COVID-19 quarantine. Member of farmer's family got and farmer said stay way for a couple weeks. That over so I will be trying to back in next week or so. I must stay away from COVID-19 because of health issues my wife has.