Massacre ..

Camile · Post: # 32921Post **Camile** » Fri Sep 08, 2006 10:32 am

Hi everyone,

Would any of you have an idea of what could have happenned, or at least how to sort it out ? because I believe it's mink as I have been adviced already ... here is the story.

Yesterday morning, all the hens and roosters (3 hens + 2 Roosters) were found dead outside their hen house.

One of the rooster was really big and he was found dead as well ...

No signs of struggling in the hen house itself ..

2 of them with a missing head .. nowhere to be found .. but all the bodies are here ...

The Silkies in the pen just next door to them are all here ...

The rabbits are in the same field as the hens .. and all of them are here without any problems ...

The geese were sleeping outside too and are fine ...

So I thought a fox who have killed them all because the silkies would have been frightened by the noise it would have made. And would have left with one of the bodies ..

I had left the door open for a good couple of months now .. so that's how it could get in ..

One neighbour mentionned stoats .. and I've been told that due to the "symptoms", it sounds like minks .... wich I believe as welll ...

Would any of you have more ideas to catch the buggar that did that ?

I've already been adviced tunnels with fenn traps, cage "autolocking" (don't know the exact name), a sewage pipe of about 2 feet dug in the ground ...

I'm still on the look out for these Fenn traps ... they seem to be hard to find around here ...

Thanks in advance,
Camile

den_the_cat · Fri Sep 08, 2006 11:19 am

you can buy traps for most things online - do a quick search for them. BUT if you don't know what it is for sure then you have to do some homework and work out what you're going to do when you have it trapped and that its legal to trap in the type you plan to use.

If you're going to kill it (and with a Fenn trap you might have to finish the job yourself whatever they say when they sell you one) make sure its legal (some things are protected and some things can only be killed in certain ways) and if you plan to release it elsewhere then you need to check distances carefully.

Plus be careful not to accidentally trap the feral cats :)

Millymollymandy · Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:14 am

Camile - can't help with traps - I just want to say I am very sorry to hear about your poor chickens.

Stonehead · Post: # 33103Post **Stonehead** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 6:33 am

den_the_cat wrote:Plus be careful not to accidentally trap the feral cats :)

They're often as bad as mink, weasels and stoats.

I'd suspect foxes as they tend to decapitate a lot of birds and then take one at a time, burying them for future eating.

Shirley · Post: # 33113Post **Shirley** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 8:16 am

Sorry to hear about your hens Camile. It's awful when that happens.

The fox used to decapitate the chickens when we were in Herefordshire so I'd agree with Stoney that it could be a fox.

Camile · Post: # 33131Post **Camile** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:05 am

Hi,

I doubt it's a fox because all the bodies were here ... so it would have at least taken one isn't it ?

Stonehead · Mon Sep 11, 2006 11:28 am

Camile wrote:Hi,

I doubt it's a fox because all the bodies were here ... so it would have at least taken one isn't it ?

A fox will kill all it can, then take them away one at a time unless he's interrupted - which would also explain why the other poultry survived.

Mink make a real mess and you'll find a lot of bitemarks in which the incisors are very close together. Weasel bitemarks are similar.

Camile · Post: # 33137Post **Camile** » Mon Sep 11, 2006 12:16 pm

The thing is that all of them were here, and he basically did a cleansweep in t henhouse ... and the other chooks were in another henhouse, in another pen ... just beside it ... but with no access in between them ..

The rabbits were in the same field ... and we didn't hear anything ... nor the dog or anything ...

as for the bitemarks ... I didn't investigate it fully because I was devastated ...

but