Agriculture Reference
In-Depth Information
Mink have no trouble climbing and getting through any hole much bigger than a golf
ball. Both the weasel and the mink tend to do their damage at night.
Again, keeping all holes sealed and making sure your birds are locked in a sealed-off
pen at night is the only sure method to control mink. Trapping is the best route if you
have problems.
Opossum
The easiest predator to catch, opossums are also a nocturnal nuisance. If you find a dead
bird that looks as if the back end was eaten out first by the attacker, and then it pro-
ceeded up the bird from there, you likely have an opossum problem. They typically start
eating at the vent opening and work forward on the chicken's body.
When I first moved to the Midwest, I had mixed pens of ducks, geese, turkeys, and
chickens. Of course, chickens and turkeys roost and the ducks and geese sleep on the
floor. Every morning I'd find a half-eaten duck on the floor. It took me a few nights of
hourly checks to finally encounter the little marsupial in the act.
Although opossums generally feed on eggs, young fowl, and garbage, they will
graduate to adult birds as food becomes scarcer in the fall. They can squeeze through
any hole — baseball-size or bigger — and dig into earthen pens to do considerable dam-
age, mostly to birds on the floor, which they can reach easily.
Every small nook and cranny must be sealed off to prevent access. They love my
sandy-bottomed shelters and will dig under doors to obtain access, so a solid floor bot-
tom for your shed is a deterrent. They can also get through cracks in doors that don't
seal quite tight, pushing through areas you'd never think possible. And remember, they
also will climb up and obtain access off the ground, so a shelter with a ceiling may be a
good idea if opossums are about.
Live traps work best to catch opossums. Bait them with a dead bird, old eggs, or
table scraps. You then have to dispose of them, of course. Whatever you do, don't take
them down the road near someone else's farm and turn them loose. If you have real is-
sues with their disposal, call the local Department of Natural Resources or state wildlife
agency and let the conservation officer deal with them.
I usually intercept opossums while doing chores. They move so slowly, I can easily
thump them with a stick or baseball bat that I keep at a midway point on the chore route.
You can also shoot them if it is legal in your area. Be careful: Opossums have many
sharp teeth and actually do “play 'possum,” pretending to be dead. Do not assume the
animal is dead and reach down to pick it up. More than once I've thought my dogs killed
a marauding opossum, only to have it get up and walk away sometime later.
