Five chickens dead overnight

[TOR]

have a heart or as mentioned retangler box with rat size hole with rat trap in it at end od box bait, you have the bait, use a chicken head.
get rid of the resident rat prolly just chew another hole.

 

[FourintheRun]

Thank you. It truly was terrible. I miss my girls.

I’m very sorry for your loss.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

Hi. I lost five chickens in one night to what I presume was a mink or weasel. Just looking for some validation this was the predator.

The only way in at night would have been through a rat hole in the side of the run. The entire run (underside too) and all openings in the coop are wrapped in hardware cloth but our resident rat chewed through the wood side of the run to get to the chicken feed. I have previously set traps (which said rat eluded), and filled & patched holes (which were re-dug in new places). Hadn’t gotten to blocking the most recent hole. The only other possible way in would be if something (raccoon or bear?) could have lifted the egg door and climbed in. But that’s a heavy door and at an angle; I’m having trouble picturing how it could be accomplished by an animal. And a bear couldn’t have fit in between the egg box dividers.

The chickens were all bitten at the back of the neck. Some blood & missing feathers. Necks seemed broken but not certain as I know dead chickens have floppy necks. No other injuries & they didn’t appear to have been gnawed on/eaten at all. I am not sure if any eggs were taken. All five of the chickens were sort of piled next to each other in one area of the coop, right in front of & in the nesting boxes. I found this odd.

Both our neighboring farms have had similar experiences over the years — one neighbor believes it to be a mink. However all of his girls were missing heads(!)

How does one go about trapping a weasel/mink? Is it possible? Would cats help deter them? Are there any other deterrents I can employ?

This whole situation is just awful. Thank you for your help.

It does sound like a weasel. They may not be able to get the chicken back out of the hole they came in from. I'm only stumped because you didn't mention any predation of internal organs. I've had a weasel break into my coop and kill several. They bit the necks but then, unable to get the corpse out of the entry hole, ate the internals before leaving. Turns out it was getting in through an unseen hole in the ROOF hidden under a 2x6 joist and nigh invisible. So no damage to the chickens bodies at all? Maybe a rat killing competition for food, but the same thing, why no consumption? I have 3 pet rats and believe me, they are meat eaters and accomplished hunters. People just don't know that.
Can you first get a camera to install in there? Identifying the culprit will help tremendously on kill techniques.
Weirdly, i covered my latest coop in hardiboard planks. (On sale)
For some reason, rodents do not chew it. I have NO chew holes in 3 years. Other buildings are still chewed to Swiss cheese! And i use copious amounts of hardware cloth. My only luck with killing weasels has been surprise or baited ambush shooting.
I had a dog once, and his run pen was a circle around the chicken coop at night.
That helped a lot!

 

[McChooky]

It does sound like a weasel. They may not be able to get the chicken back out of the hole they came in from. I'm only stumped because you didn't mention any predation of internal organs. I've had a weasel break into my coop and kill several. They bit the necks but then, unable to get the corpse out of the entry hole, ate the internals before leaving. Turns out it was getting in through an unseen hole in the ROOF hidden under a 2x6 joist and nigh invisible. So no damage to the chickens bodies at all? Maybe a rat killing competition for food, but the same thing, why no consumption? I have 3 pet rats and believe me, they are meat eaters and accomplished hunters. People just don't know that.
Can you first get a camera to install in there? Identifying the culprit will help tremendously on kill techniques.
Weirdly, i covered my latest coop in hardiboard planks. (On sale)
For some reason, rodents do not chew it. I have NO chew holes in 3 years. Other buildings are still chewed to Swiss cheese! And i use copious amounts of hardware cloth. My only luck with killing weasels has been surprise or baited ambush shooting.
I had a dog once, and his run pen was a circle around the chicken coop at night.
That helped a lot!

Your dog pen around the run reminds me of a stone goat shed a guy built on YouTube .His chicken coop built on top of it and they flew up on a ledge to get in the chicken house.He could gather eggs from the back of it because it was built on a steep slope but the front was level. He used a ladder to get in the front.

 

[Snakebiteholloway]

Your dog pen around the run reminds me of a stone goat shed a guy built on YouTube .His chicken coop built on top of it and they flew up on a ledge to get in the chicken house.He could gather eggs from the back of it because it was built on a steep slope but the front was level. He used a ladder to get in the front.

Oh man. Good idea! I always say I'm going to get a jackass to live in my coop. Or, well, a barn and my chickens roost in there i guess. Best watchdogs ever. And they never succumb to temptation to bite a chicken, lol. But I can't have dogs anymore. Severe allergies so it can't live inside and it's too cold to put one outside for 8 months of the year. Many farmers do, here. But i won't, even in a heated house. What kinda life would that be? Stuck in a dog house all winter? Nope.

 

[McChooky]

One of our neighbors who sold eggs commercially kept a bull in one of his pastures, cows in another and hogs beside his chicken coop. Nothing crossed his hog pen that didn't have to deal with those boars

 

[McChooky]

Our baby monitor picks up every little noise. I highly recommend them to people who can't have a dog.

 

[Barnette]

I can do that but the reason I give them 24/7 run access is they get up hours earlier than I do and I don’t want to keep their food/water inside the coop. The coop is small & the run is completely covered so their food & water is out there.

This might be a solution though, thank you.

You might want to consider an automatic door. They open with the sunrise and close when it gets dark. They can be a bit pricey but they are definitely worth it

 

[Love Donkeys]

Sorry for your loss.
We had a brood of Muscovy ducklings killed in their sleep. The ducklings were confined, in the evenings, to an unused horse stall for "safety". The only body part that was eaten was their brains. We placed large baited spring traps in the stall and caught two large Field Rats.