Tips on keeping weasels away?

[Bogie]

[QUOTE=hoopoe;7890442]
a short tailed weasel or a least weasel ( depending on where you live) is of no threat to something as big as a chicken.

they are rodent and bunny hunters.

a mink, on the other hand, which is a member of the weasel family, is of concern.

You can consult your fish and wildlife department for info and help[/QUOTE]

We had a short tailed weasel living in our house. We found out the day that my husband saw it dragging a mouse INTO our house to eat it. We think it had already killed all the mice inside the house. It lived in the internal spaces of our house for awhile. Our cats heard it but it never came into the open area. Once it must have been in a closet because we smelled it! The short tailed weasels are very small. We tried to trap it but were never successful; eventually it moved on but it was an awesome mouse catcher.

We also have Fisher cats in the area. One of those killed all the chickens at a friends house in a single evening. Those are much bigger and much deadlier. They kill things for fun. They can slither through a tiny hole.

[brody]

I did not see the weasel in question but my husband did. It was in sept. it went under a coop and dug a hole I would have thought was too tiny to allow a predator in to get access to one coop ( we had hardware cloth wrapping the access points). Another coop had a gate that was bungee cord. All we could think on that was the weasel somehow opened the gate a bit and pushed through.

The remaining chickens were put into fort knox. A small run made from a dog run with a totally secure raised coop in it. It took two weeks for weasel to figure out how to breech security.

I am very very much of the live and let let live camp. I will not encourage or allow any predators to take up occupancy in my barn if it ever gets built.

:(.

[ToTheNines]

I no longer have chickens, but when my SO was here he wanted them. We built a chicken pen that is a metal tube frame, covered on all sides, including the top, with smalll mesh wire that goes into the ground at least a foot or so. It is about 12x12 and about 7 feet high, and has a chicken house on one side with a small chicken door into the wire pen. The chicken house was bought very inexpensively as a hunting blind for two. The pen was easy to make. A neighbor fabricated the metal frame. We dug a square trench to place the metal frame in and attached the wire. Then backfilled.

Nothing gets in there. I have since raised many wild turkeys (which I set free). Both the chickens and the poults were very easy to train to go in the pen at night.

It was not that difficult to set up. I would much rather have rat snakes, weasels, whatever, than chickens. I hardly ever see a mouse at the house or barn.

If you dispose of this weasel, you will have something else move in and you will have to get rid of it too. Why not spend the time and energy on a better chicken pen? Sorry to preach, but it upsets me that people are so hard on wildlife especially when they tempt them with their domestic animals.

[PlanB]

[QUOTE=ToTheNines;7890733]

If you dispose of this weasel, you will have something else move in and you will have to get rid of it too. [/QUOTE]

What is the weasel keeping away, other than mice?

Sounds like a cat or two is the best solution… keep away the weasels, mice, and safe for the chickens.

[Guin]

Weasels eat snakes, mice, all sorts of pests. They are very solitary animals and you will never have more than one. Add me to the “weasel-proof the coop” commenters.

[saultgirl]

Anyone have experience with weasels taking chickens during the day? Their coop is pretty secure, but the run is huge and we cannot make major changes to it this time of year.

[beowulf]

[QUOTE=PlanB;7890987]
What is the weasel keeping away, other than mice?

Sounds like a cat or two is the best solution… keep away the weasels, mice, and safe for the chickens.[/QUOTE]
weasels are not apex predators, but compete with some apex animals – fox, primarily – and rats, which are not apex but quite precocious both in breeding and competing. i would rather have a least weasel or stoat in my yard than a fox or a rat colony.

[charismaryllis]

i was going to third (fourth?) the hardware cloth, maybe even just wiring it to the existing chicken wire from the ground up all the way around the run until spring, when you can install it properly, but then the thought occurs: could a weasel climb it to get to the larger openings above?

[saultgirl]

The run is HUGE, it is about 25-30 feet long, and about 15 feet wide; there is a lot of SNOW and everything is FROZEN, it is not a simple matter of rigging up some hardware cloth!

[wildlifer]

[QUOTE=saultgirl;7890016]

Wildlifer, you are welcome to come get him! I’ll trade you for some bats, if you have any! Those have sadly gone missing in the last two years :([/QUOTE]

I would love to, alas, but I am (a) loath to give up my bats, they, along with the bluebirds & goldfinches & buntings & fish & chipping sparrows, do a phenomenal job of keeping my farm pretty close to mosquito-free, and (b) yeahhhh, I’m pretty sure my career would be ended by shipping bats across state ( and international!) lines, not just because of The Lacey Act, but there’s this eensy White-Nose thing… Poor batlets, but several news studies have just been published with some promising advances in the ongoing White-Nose Wars!!!

I still want a weasel…I haven’t even seen my grey foxes in nearly a year. I love hearing the coyotes sing, but grey fox bad-assery is 1000X higher given tree-climbing awesomeness, I’d even be happy with a bark.

[wildlifer]

[QUOTE=PlanB;7890987]
What is the weasel keeping away, other than mice? [/QUOTE]

It’s called a habitat “niche.” Think of it as an individual animal’s cubicle. Take one out of its cubicle, that space, or niche is now unoccupied & its food/water/shelter specific to that animal unutilized. As there are generally always more individuals of any species than there are available habitat niches, a wandering individual who is young or has lost his own niche in a battle or due to habitat destruction, spies the open office & happily moves in, relieved to have food, water, & shelter once more.

It’s one of the core principles of wildlife management & conservation, underlying many complex issues, but one of those is the reason why simply taking out one individual you don’t like is an exercise in futility. The only reasonable use of this approach is when you have a particular problem individual (usually through the fault of a human, unfortunately, say, a black bear who has become accustomed to the tasty snacks the well-meaning neighbour has left in the backyard for him - not uncommon) who had adopted abnormal behaviour. Then, much to the regret of biologists, we must step in & either euthanize or relocate the animal, if the latter is feasible for the species/individual involved.

Without removing the snacks or whatever else has led to the development of abnormal wildlife behaviour though, the conflict will continue until, hopefully, successful human education is achieved.

[Christa_P]

[QUOTE=beowulf;7891181]
weasels are not apex predators, but compete with some apex animals – fox, primarily – and rats, which are not apex but quite precocious both in breeding and competing. i would rather have a least weasel or stoat in my yard than a fox or a rat colony.[/QUOTE]

I had rat issues at one barn until a weasel moved in and cleaned them out. No chickens to protect so I was happy to have it.

[saultgirl]

We’ve decided that we are going to “wait and see”, as the chickens are locked up tight in their coop overnight, and it seems weasels mostly hunt at night, so we are hoping they will be safe.

The coop is pretty well-built; it’s just the run that isn’t weasel-proof.

[brody]

I suspect in our case neighbors cats had starting helping weasel with his more typical food sources. The big issue for me was the shock of day one and then the total fort know set up that weasel still infiltrated somehow.

We’d had chickens 5 years and never lost one.

[saultgirl]

[QUOTE=brody;7894583]
I suspect in our case neighbors cats had starting helping weasel with his more typical food sources. The big issue for me was the shock of day one and then the total fort know set up that weasel still infiltrated somehow.

We’d had chickens 5 years and never lost one.[/QUOTE]

My husband asked, “do you really think we can keep a WEASEL from “weaseling” his way into the coop?”

Unless it has the strength to lift the “drawbridge” type chicken door, I don’t think it can get in.

I haven’t seen his tracks for 2 days now, so it’s possible he got eaten by a coyote already.

[wildlifer]

[QUOTE=saultgirl;7894992]

I haven’t seen his tracks for 2 days now, so it’s possible he got eaten by a coyote already.[/QUOTE]

On my honour, NSA, I have not been weasel-napping (it’s too cold up there, I’m cold enough right here).

[saultgirl]

[QUOTE=wildlifer;7895465]
On my honour, NSA, I have not been weasel-napping (it’s too cold up there, I’m cold enough right here).[/QUOTE]

:lol: It’s warm here today – went up to about 32F this afternoon (went snowshoeing with only a light vest on) – and only dropping down to 12F tonight!

It’s very sad about the bats, though. Before I knew about white nose disease, I had noticed bats flying around in the winter; I was distressed and pointed it out to my husband (“What is he going to eat?? I thought he should be hibernating by now?”) and so my heart just sank when I learned the specifics of the disease. There is no doubt in my mind that’s what happened to them

[GoodTimes]

We had an ermine wipe out over a dozen pheasants this spring. He managed to squeeze through a crack in the floorboards that we didn’t notice (older coop, lots of bedding). Such a waste, it literally just killed them, didn’t eat anything, and obviously couldn’t fit them back down through the crack.

We ended up moving them into the two horse trailer that we weren’t using until they were old enough to butcher. We’ve decided that after 5 years of unsuccessful poultry raising we’re done. We had the fox beat, the bears stopped bothering them, but a new ermine proof coop and run isn’t worth it for us.

[HungarianHippo]

wildlifer, that’s great to hear about the advances in white nose disease. Hope they can reverse the course!
You’d love my barn-- I have no idea how to estimate the bat population, but when you go in there as dusk approaches, there is a din of squeaks, clicks, and crawling sounds coming from all areas of the roof. And the guano piles up rather impressively. I think it’s a pretty big colony.

[saultgirl]

No sign of the weasel again today; there was a rather large wolf up near the house this morning, though! I have never seen a wolf that close before… husband chased it away and we’re hoping it doesn’t return. I worry about my dog!