Mink

I have just got in from clearing up the carnage in my garden. Last night a mink manages to get into my hen house and ripped apart 2 of my hens and a chick before I managed to get outside.

It was in the early hours of the morning when I heard a huge racket outside my bedroom window. I have the poultry houses in the garden, just below my bedroom in order to make the fox a little more wary of visiting, as it would mean he would have to go out of his comfort zone and come very close to the house. As soon as I heard the hens, I lept out of bed and threw anything I could get my hands on, at the coop. A long, dark creature ran from the hen house, into the hedge. I ran downstairs and out into the yard in my nighty. In the short time of me hearing the birds clucking frantically, to throwing things out the window, the mink had killed 3 of my chickens. I'm just grateful for being a light sleeper, as it could have been the end for all my birds had I not acted so quickly.

So, from now on, the remaining, traumatised chicks will be sleeping in the woodshed, which is a locked brick built 'room' next to the kitchen door of the farmhouse, where the dogs sleep and they will share the woodshed with my cats. The other hens will now sleep in a very secure house at night, which has a heavy gauge mesh on the bottom of the run part, so the mink will not be able to even dig his way in, let alone get the door open to the sleeping compartment.

All I can hope is that the mink gives up when he realises he can't get at anymore birds. Fingers crossed.