How can I find my old pictures?

[chelsea]

sorry to hear about your chickens.

[Hilly]

Just wanted to say sorry too , heres me living in the country not far from you, and you get the fox !!, again foxwatch is good and i"d only let them out when you could be with them.

[Charlottechicken]

So sorry to read your terrible news I hope you feel up to getting new chickens in the New Year.

[little chickadee]

Sorry to hear your news. I'm glad you're thinking about getting some more.

I'm really dreading telling the kids if a fox ever gets ours

[Muppet81]

Your poor girls. I felt so sad after reading this. All I can do is send hugs and my sympathy to you and your children.

I hope you do feel that you can try again in the future but perhaps with a Foxwatch.

[Harrison family]

I am so sorry to hear your sad news, we have had a very sad discovery this morning too. Last night our three girls were killed by an intruder which we think may have been a mink. We have a big walk in run with the eglu and run inside, but we never shut the eglu door so they can come out whenever they like. We have a 6 ft fence all around, and in five years have never had any trouble, but recently a neighbour said mink had been seen in the village. I feel utterly terrible, like I did not keep my girls safe. Has anyone else had problems with mink??

 

Unfortunately the girls were found by my 13 year old son, who went off to school in floods of tears.

 

I'd like to think we will have more in the spring, but I'm scared now and don't feel convinced we can keep them safe without keeping them prisoner. Please can anyone tell me what a Foxwatch is?

 

My great sympathies to anyone who has lost their chooks like this.

[Egluntyne]

Am very sorry to hear your news. What a terrible shock for your son.

 

Certain parts of the country are plagued by mink which have escaped from fur farms and have adapted to the wild.

 

I think the only remedy is a chap with a couple of hungry Jack Russells.

[Muppet81]

I'm so sorry. Your poor son.

 

I tend to think that the fox is the ultimate predator but perhaps not. I suppose mink can get in and out where a fox can't.

 

Thinking about you all.

xx

[Harrison family]

Now I am in shock; just looked out of the window and there it is, as bold as anything, walking up the path and into the chicken run (the door is open now). I ran out and chased it up behing the shed where I banged anything I could reach with a broom, in a total panic, and it just LOOKED AT ME. So scary and big, it looked like a skinny otter.

 

Ive phoned the council and they are coming out to try to trap it, I'm sure it will come back, but I may leave it a snack later to keep it interested in case they don't come for a few days being the council!

 

PLEASE all check your chickens are safe from skinny predators who can climb and get in places a fox never could, I don't want anyone else to feel like we do today.

[Tweety]

Very sorry to read your sad news. It was suggested to us when we lost two of our bantams that it could have been a mink or a stoat, although I have never seen either creature and have seen plenty of foxes, so we just don't know.

How did the culprit get into your run? Did it get through the walk-in run AND the eglu run? I too leave the eglu door open all the time - although I have now moved my girls + eglu into a stable which is fortified like Fort Knox, and I just hope that they will be safe inside. I have a Foxwatch too, but it didn't stop whatever took my girls so I'm not sure that it is totally foolproof and, to be honest, I think we have to accept that it is almost impossible to be 100% sure that the girls are safe whatever type of housing/run they are in.

I hope that you will feel like getting some more chickens in the Spring. Good luck.

[Tweety]

Have just been out to close the eglu door, having read your last message. I hope the council catch it quickly.

[Harrison family]

Our eglu and run sit within a big walk-in run with 6ft high perimeter. We leave the eglu and its run door open so the chooks could go out into the walk in enclosure at will. So, potentially I guess they were always at some risk, but we always felt it was preferable to give the chooks a good quality of life, even if they were at a small degree of risk, rather than be prisoners who were shut into the eglu or its little run. To be honest although it has been horrible, I still feel it is kinder to give them space to free range and do their chickeny stuff.

 

Apparently the mink has been seen regularly down on the canal which is just a field away, by boat owners, and they believe it (or more likely them) is decimating the duck population too. This is so sad, we have a wild duck who nests every year in our garden, and I feel so sad to think of the ducks being killed too.

 

If we decide to get more chooks, we will definitely have to rethink the accommodation; we too just protected against foxes, we never thought anything else would get our girls.

 

I don't want to scare people who probably don't even have mink nearby, but I guess it is always as well to keep a close eye on the accommodation just to be sure no little gaps or holes are appearing in fencing etc.

 

Hopefully the council man will come to our rescue. I'll keep you posted, and thanks to you all for your kind words

[lisa33]

So Sorry to hear about your girls

 

[little chickadee]

Hi I'm so sorry to hear about your girls. I'm just wondering if this is what is happening to a friend of ours. He can't work out what is getting inside his run, but something is eating one chicken a night and completely stripping the carcass. None of the other chickens is touched until the next night when the same thing has happened. I don't think they've got any hens left now. Were the carcasses stripped?

[Olly]

so sorry to hear this - at least you know now it was a mink, not a fox. I do agree though - we all have to balance risk v the pleasure of having free-range chickens, and they had happy lives until this predator came along.

 

I don't know if a Foxwatch would work on mink, though. It's basically an infra-red detector thingy which emits a high-pitched sound when anything crosses the beam - the sound is too high for us to hear, but it is unpleasant to foxes. It doesn't affect cats (or chickens) so I guess it would depend on what a mink's hearing frequency is.

 

I hope the council can trap it - sounds like the best solution.

[Harrison family]

Hello everyone

the man from the council phoned to say it would cost us fifty quid for them to set a trap for two weeks, we had to supply the bait and if it had not worked after two weeks we still had to pay and they went away! To be fair he did not know much about mink, but he suggested we could go to the farm supplies shop to buy a trap for twenty quid which obviously we can use for as long as we need.

 

So we will go and get a trap and see whether we can have any success - I feel so angry that it was here and I did not do anything but I was so mad that I could not think straight (plus I have no handy weapon and my neighbour with an airgun was out!).

 

To answer the question about stripping the carcass, no our chickens had not been stripped, but the mink had gone for their heads, so rather nasty sight.

[chickenlass]

http://www.ratbait.co.uk/index.asp?function=DISPLAYPRODUCT&productid=224&gclid=CKDk_M2roJACFQVtMAodPHbdpw

Hope this link works.... it's going to be lot cheaper than £50!!

I'm so sorry you are having this problem...I will certainly be more vigilant myself now.

[Harrison family]

thanks chickenlass, my husband has been to the farm supplies today and bought one for £19, which is now primed with stinky cat food, and we are all keeping our fingers crossed.

[chickenlass]

Good luck!