The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Poultry & Waterfowl => Topic started by: kipper on March 20, 2014, 04:42:15 pm
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yikes today got a surprise when i went in the greenhouse to feed the cats !! A stoat or weasel jumped out screeching its head off.One of the cats made a shapr exit and the other went towards it.
It jumped at the cat screeching and he left quick after that.My question is if theres 1 will there be more?
It was about 6 " long ,light brown in colour with a white stomach
Its now in stoat heaven but now worried that there could be more ,My hens were well locked up early last night
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Quite feisty aren't they ;D we get the occasional one and if the dog seeks them out they jump around spitting their heads off, fearless, the dog loves it, she can never catch them though.
I've only ever seen one at a time, but of course at this time of year there may be babies.
We keep our chicken house open 24/7 - it's a shed I can stand up in so the roosting bars are quite high and although there are stoat about here we've never had any killed ever by anything including the stoats. One day our luck will run out I suspect :D
I'd keep the chooks safe just now if I were you, but wildlife is out there so only so much you can do.
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One of our cats brings them back from time to time, usually young adults . No Idea how he manages not to bet bitten
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wow im surprised as my cats didnt hang around,dont thing the stoat worried one bit and actually jumped towards the cats
hope its a one off and not more around,the first time ive seen one
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A stoat can get inside your chicken house through ventilation/mesh openings etc... I lost 5 young hens and a cockerel last autumn to what we think could only have been a stoat - as the house was shut, all birds inside, no mess outside. Very little blood and only small wounds on the birds. Must have been hell in there though, the place was in a total mess... no sign of the stoat though, but I know they are about....
I would have thought it is almost impossible to have your chicken house safe from them at night, unless you have no vents or similar, in which case your birds would die from pneumonia pretty pronto...
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The only thing that has kept a murderous stoat out of our run is 14g 1/2inch mesh. Expensive but worth it - we lost 7 birds in a fortnight. It can squeeze through really small gaps so the whole run, inc the roof, is now lined with the heavy duty 1/2inch stuff. I used hog rings (the small ones, not the ones used for pigs ;) ) to tie it all together.
Stoats are excellent climbers (they steal bird chicks from nests). They can take on prey much larger than themselves and can take chickens off their perches. Unfortunately, you can expect it to be back :(
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Thanks for the comments ,Thankfully that Stoat wont be back again for sure ;)
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I only ever had one and the cat killed it. think it was pretty young. My dad used to say that the make a lot of noise when threatened to summon help. Not sure how true that is !
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Any of that gang (mink, weasel, ferret, polecat) will take poultry or ducks if they can. I once found a polecat cornered by our Border Collies outside the dairy door. The dogs nipped at it but even they didn't dare go too near those teeth and the polecat escaped after I called them off. It would certainly have made a mess of even my largest cockerel if it had chosen to.