The trap

Yesterday morning I found the chewed carcass of another murdered  chicken where John had parked his truck overnight. Something had eaten it under the truck in the dead of night. Plus another was dead in the run.  Something bad was in the chook house again. Something hungry. So far it has killed and eaten seven chooks. And we still did not know what it was. 

The Breeder had a large live animal trap in her big red barn, so last night I set out to put it in the chook house run. I wanted to put it in the little hatch doorway as ron suggested, but all the chickens were sitting about looking so Pluckable  and so deeply Dopey that I could not bear for the trap to fall down, or slip sideways, leaving the door open for the varmint and all his brothers to walk straight in. So the trap and its can of cat food was in the run, close to where I think the chicken eaters were getting in.   I left the big light on in the chook house and they were absolutely locked up. 

If anything got into the chook house I was going to be very surprised. The dogs and I worked for hours yesterday covering every hole in that colander of a shed and securing all the doors and windows.  Boo has a good nose for holes in the walls.

Boo, the junk yard dog ,took himself to the barn at bedtime. His chain puts him between Poppy and Tima. So he is happy to be there. Much to my surprise.   He is their protection. But the chooks are in a seperate  building, The Rat House, so Ton and the Big Dog were roaming.

At One in the morning I was woken by the dogs barking. So I grabbed my dressing gown and my long heavy red torch, rushed outside and stepped into my bare feet gumboots. I could hear a caffuffle coming  from the chook house and at a run followed by Ton I let Boo off his chain.   (I have no rifle at all so I was not sure what I was going to do if it was big animal in there because there sure was something in there terrifying the birds.) I threw the boards and bricks away from the door and opening the outer door remembered I had tied the inner screen door shut to keep it sealed, Boo hurled himself at the door barking madly, the chickens were is full panic inside,  and I could see through the screen that there was a mink, a weasel, a long shiny dark  bastard  of a thing that had oozed out of hell, curled around one of my chickens dragging it across the floor by the neck. I did not have a knife in my dressing gown so I cursed and worked at the stupid knot bashing on the door to try and scare it off the bird. Shouting, banging, dogs barking chickens screaming but it was at her neck and ignored us. Finally I got the door open, stepped in and threw the torch as fast as Boo leapt and we both missed the mink. It shot into a corner of the chook house and disappeared.

I picked up the chook, prepared for a broken neck and she blinked at me, shook her head and screeching leapt down and ran back to the others.  A calm slowly descended and the chickens picked their way back through the chaos and panic and began to climb back up to their roosts.  Ton herded them gently back into order and Boo paced and sniffed at the corner where the Mink had disappeared.

The dogs and I dragged the trap round the back of the building, found the hole (minute.. he had got in through an old repair in the wall), closed the gap and put the cage in front of it, tlocked the chook-house up again firmly then back to bed we went. There was nothing more all night though I have to admit I did not sleep well: one ear trained on the open window but all was quiet.

So I suppose now I need a small animal trap. What the hell do I do about this animal. They are so small they can get in through impossible spaces.

Time for me to go out and get ready for the milking. I will check the trap on the way and see if we have caught anything.  But I doubt he is heavy enough to spring it. Dawn is coming.

I hope you all have a lovely day. I really do. We are half way to solving this anyway. Finding out what we are dealing with is an important piece in the puzzle.

Your friend on the farm

celi