Mink get in our chicken coop and kill our chickens. It is impossible to make it entirely impossible for mink to get in?
Is there poison or other techniquest to scare them away?
Killing the animal is not the answer – as long as your chickens are accessible, another predator will take the place of the one you killed. Also, poison is not species-specific, and any animal that ingests it (including your chickens) will die. It can also kill anything that eats anything that was killed by the poison, potentially killing a protected species, like a hawk or eagle.
You need to look into ways of making the coop predator-proof, sealing up any holes and openings that a predator might slip through, and sinking a barrier around the coop, to keep out burrowing animals.
hi there are humane traps you can buy the RSPCA will adviise i had trouble with foxs killing my chickens they would never eat them so i put carpet grippers around the top of my coop and that stopped foxs
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Killing the animal is not the answer – as long as your chickens are accessible, another predator will take the place of the one you killed. Also, poison is not species-specific, and any animal that ingests it (including your chickens) will die. It can also kill anything that eats anything that was killed by the poison, potentially killing a protected species, like a hawk or eagle.
You need to look into ways of making the coop predator-proof, sealing up any holes and openings that a predator might slip through, and sinking a barrier around the coop, to keep out burrowing animals.
References :
I am still working this problem through, and I am loosing at least 1 head per day to some similar predator. I have tried all the "predator proofing" (there is no such thing – every hole I patch it finds or makes a new one) I can do to a pen, the so called "humane" traps (they are neither humane nor do they trap what you want and they cost me about two months worth of egg sales), and I am unable, although I would love to use poison, due to the large number of other domestic animals on my farm. It has proved to crafty for one of the Conibear 110 traps used on muskrat and the like, daintily picking the bait right out. You might try one of the old rat catching tricks I am going to attempt tommorow night, mink are semi-aquatic but even they can’t swimm non-stop for 24 hours. Get a large trash can or something similar Like an old 55-gallon drum. Cut a small piece of scrap wood like a piece of 2×4 about 4" long. Fill the barrel or can about halfway up with water, attach a piece of meat, the kind that your mink or whatever is stealing, to the board, set it in the water meat side up. and wait. With rats by morning the barrel should be full of floaters, they get in and can’t swim forever, the sides are to hard and smooth to grip and the water is to deep for them to get a good boost to jump out. You can also use an old board to put a ramp up to it just so they get easier access. The best part is that the cans are usually to heavy for a child move or tip over, dogs will knock the board down if they even want to see whats in the barrel, cats hate water no worries there, no poison for other domestic animals to get into, and its safe for the environment. The only thing you have to worry about is the legallity — check with your local DNR office or web site regarding nuissance animals and be careful who you mention your mink problem to, the anti-fur crowd would rather your farm go bankrupt than for you to kill just one of these vermin.
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