The Adventures of the Reese's Pieces Gang

Today we found 5 chickens dead upon entering the barn. We thought another dog had gotten in, you see a few weeks ago we lost 8 chickens and 2 ducks to the neighbors dog. They then got sick because of getting overly stressed due to the dog attack and we lost another 9 chickens. Well, today's chickens were peculiar because they had bite marks on the back of the neck. We were also missing another duck. I thought that we had a fox or raccoon that had found their way into the chicken pen. The boys went out to clean up the mess and saw a “creature” sniffing at the door of the rabbit pen. They threw a bucket at it, which caused a hiss from the animal and it scurried away. By their first description I thought the animal might have been a muskrat, but then they told me it had a long furry tail. We looked up a mink in our encyclopedia and both the boys confirmed that that was what they saw in the barn.

Discovering a varmint solved another puzzle that presented itself this past Sunday. Sunday morning while doing chores Elizabeth found a barrel that had 17 eggs. All the eggs were frozen, most were cracked and ended up being partially empty when I thawed them. Some of the eggs were cracked in half with exposed frozen egg. Phil thought maybe the chickens were so shook up after the dog incident that they were laying eggs while perched on the barrel. I didn't think that would happen. We've asked a couple locals if a mink would steel eggs, and all have said YES! I guess eggs are a favorite of theirs. Our friend had mink killing his chickens through chicken wire. It would reach through the wire and grab the birds by the neck and kill them but not be able to get them out to eat them.

Our plan is to trap and kill the mink. Thankfully one of our friends has a live trap we are using for tonight. Tomorrow Phil is going to stop at the mink farm that is about 2 miles from here and see if they have any traps and if they'd want the mink (maybe even pay for them) once we catch them. If we are successful you just might notice a lovely mink collar on my coat! :-)

Oh by the way. On a very sad note. We started the winter with 70 chickens and 6 ducks along with our geese and turkeys. One of the geese is still healing from the dog attack, the turkeys are safe and getting nice and big. However, we only have about 40 chickens left and 3 ducks. SOOOOO sad!!