On Friday, Natanah and Alley awoke to find terrible doings in the chicken coop. There on the floor were the lifeless bodies of fourteen of our chickens. The coop was in disarray, and it was evident that something had gotten in during the night and wreaked havoc on our small flock.
We examined the coop and found several areas that could have been entry points for a small critter – and my thinking was that it was a weasel. They have a reputation for being blood-thirsty when they get inside a closed space, and this matched such a pattern. With only two birds actually looking chewed on, the rest were simply killed and left without any other obvious signs of eating or distress. Weasels can also be very small and able to get through many of the tiny spaces that tend to crop up in an old coop space such as ours.
That morning we took the chicken carcasses to Tom Ricardi who runs the Massachusetts Bird of Prey Rehabilitation Center in Conway. He will use the chickens as food for the many raptors that are in his care. At least they will go to a great cause, and will not have died for nothing. Here are some great pictures of some of the birds Tom works with.
That afternoon, we worked on the chicken coop to tighten up the gaps in the fencing and walls. I felt sure that after such a successful first outing, our predator would return for more food. A closer inspection found two obvious access points, and one in particular had evidence of feathers and blood. Part of an inner plywood wall had bowed outward and left a sizeable gap that led into the chicken coop.
Our work was a success – confirmed that night, when I came up on the coop in the evening with some boy scouts from Troop 1 Dedham. There, hanging upside down on the outside wall of the coop, was a furry creature! My headlamp illuminated it for just a brief moment before it scurried down out of sight and into the darkness. We gave quick chase, but saw nothing more. Larger than a weasel, I began to wonder if our predator was a mink or possibly a fisher cat.
Fisher cat was less likely, as they tend to be more reclusive, and I’ve never seen evidence of them near the farm buildings. Mink on the other hand have been seen a lot this winter. In fact, I had seen one wandering around the buildings about a month ago. They tend to be bold creatures that are not nearly as shy as you might expect.
Sunday afternoon gave confirmation. I heard a commotion out in the chicken yard and ran outside to find a brown mink sinking her sharp teeth into one of our remaining hens. Her brown body was about half her size, but 
she was no match for her quickness and fangs. I ran back inside to get my rifle, and came back out in time to make the shot. A quick bang, and it was over… but not without the loss of another chicken.
I never enjoy killing an animal, and looked closer at the mink. She was a beautiful, and I was saddened that it had all come to this. Mink play an important role of keeping down rat populations as well as controlling other undesirable rodents like rabbits and voles. The winter has been particularly cold and long this year, and food is scarce for these wild creatures. However, this one
had developed a taste for our chickens, and we could not afford to lose any more.
Cycles of life are front and center on a farm. Today was a grim reminder of the darker side of things, but it is balanced by the other signs of spring that come this time of year. New piglets huddle under the heat lamp in the pigpen, and we are checking regularly for new lambs due any day now. Those fourteen dead chickens helped feed recovering raptors, and in the farm office you can hear the peep-peep of twenty-six young chicks… soon to grow into the new flock of chickens on the farm.
Red Gate Farm 