I think I saw a mink

[enjoytheride]

Yes, we had one kill 9 chickens in one night, come back and kill 5 more. My husband shot at it at very close range in an attempt to scare it off and it ran away then came back 30 minutes later while he was standing outside waiting for it and that was the last time it came back.

Your coop has to be 100% secure and able to withstand a sustained attack. As in the floor of the pen needs to be hardware cloth as well.

They get into a blood frenzy and they don’t stop killing until nothing is left alive in a contained area like a coop. They are not afraid of lights, noise, or people when they are in the middle of killing.

[GoodTimes]

My coop and run is completely covered in hardware cloth. I do let the girls out in a fenced area to “free range” safe from the dog when I’m home.

My mom lost her entire flock two years in a row and gave up. After many years of not having any predator losses she lost a couple to a fox when they were out free ranging, and then lost the rest of the flock to an ermine. A knot in one of the floor boards had fallen out and he squeezed through into the coop at night and had a blood bath.
The following year a bear and her three cubs tore into the run and killed the whole flock.

[endlessclimb]

People who raise game birds (quail/pheasant/chukkar/etc) can lose hundreds and hundreds of birds in one night to ermine. They’re psycho when they go into their killing sprees.

[Tarlo_Farm]

They are killers. Also, we have mink in the rocks around the place I used to keep my boat. They would choose a few boats to use as both kitchens, leaving fish offal behind, and as cat boxes. If people didn’t fasten hardware cloth securely, the mink would pull it off to get on their favorite boats. Someone watched one jump about three feet to get on my boat.
I used to think they were cute. No more.

[Calvincrowe]

We have weasels and mink around us. So far, my hens are untouched. I welcome the little mustelids at this point and wish they’d get busy on my rats that are making a mess of the barn. Madame Weasel raised a mess of Wee Weasels last year— babies are tiny little nubs of cuteness!! She led her brood by the front window of our house a few times. Pretty sure she lived under our heat pump.

Poultry are vulnerable to so many predators! All you can do is try to create a secure coop and contain them safely as well. Red tail hawks are my main issue— they’ve killed more than a dozen over the last 15 years. I cannot put hens out without aviary netting at my farm.

[pony_grandma]

I thought I saw a mink run out of my barn once. And I’m thinking no one breeds mink around here anymore. It sat up looking at me then I realized it was a ferret. Someone had dumped one out at our place. Poor sweetheart, it was lonely and hungry. We named her RikkiTikkiTavi.