There were a couple of very interesting comments on The Diary's post 'Cold-Blooded Murder' about the carnage wreaked by a mink in Tom Bryson's chicken runs over the past two weeks - if you haven't read them, they're here.No-one can accuse Tom of not doing his level best to keep predators out of his runs. He was well aware of the dangers of keeping chickens in an area like this. But Tom's like so many of the people who live and work in this remote part of the world, taking on the added problems as part of the challenge and interest of the place.
The picture above shows his set-up, with a electric mesh, running at 3,000 volts off a photovoltaic cell, surrounding a coop secured by an electronic door which comes down in good time each evening. What Tom underestimated was the sheer wiliness of our mink, which not only managed to get under (or through) the electric mesh, but also forced up the door on the coop. Since this picture was taken, the fence has been more tightly secured to the ground, and the door has wood along its base so it can't be forced up.
Anyway, the hunt is now on for the wicked animal, with no less than four humane traps set around the croft. On Tuesday night all four were baited with the heads of the chickens which died on Monday night, and all the heads were gratefully removed by the mink, who must have thoroughly enjoyed his supper.At this point Hughie MacLachlan joined the hunt, bringing a cockerel of his own, in a secure cage, to act as live bait to draw the mink to where the traps were located, while Tom baited the traps with fish. This morning the cockerel was dead, his head chewed off, and all the traps were empty.
This is some mink.
That's awful about the cockerel, the poor thing.
ReplyDeleteI read this in the press - could this be of any help for your area? http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-15006725
I know it's for the Western Isles, but if you could establish that mink are a particular problem in your area then maybe there would be grounds to request that a similar scheme is run by Scottish Natural Heritage to your area too.
Here in Flanders, we use geese to guard the yard. They are the best!
ReplyDeleteHas there been any thought to it being a wildcat or does the prey debris point in a definite direction to mink as the culprit? I once had a crofter pal on Knoydart who had to wire over the top of his pen as well. The wildcat decimated his coop just like Tom's prior to him doing this.
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