OFI 670: Catching A Weasel Or Out Foxing A Fox, A Farmer’s Problem

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Kids Books Are B.S.

So, you have all probably either read or watched Bambi. That was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. Then I had a daughter and watched it with her. As a hunter, I was offended. What an anti-hunting movie that says nothing about over-population of deer, disease or starvation.

Most of you have probably never read the kids book Findus and the Fox by Sven Nordqvist. My Aunt and Uncle bought this book for Hattie on a trip to Sweden when Hattie was very little. This was our favorite book to read together. I think Hattie liked it so much because I liked it so much. I liked it because the illustrations of Pettson’s farm, outbuildings and farm house were exactly what I had pictured when I first decided I wanted my own farm. Findus is actually Pettson’s cat.

However, as I read through this book the first time with Hattie I realized it was just as flawed as Bambi. In this story Pettson’s neighbor is portrayed as the villain because he wants to shoot a fox that has been eating his chickens. The neighbor warns Pettson about the fox and states his intention to shoot it. However, Pettson, having a bigger heart than the neighbor, decides not to shoot it but to really scare it.

Pettson sets up an elaborate plan that involves fire works, an exploding chicken and a fake ghost. Findus goes along with because he apparently does not have enough instinct to know that a fox will also kill a cat. At the crescendo of this tale the fireworks get lit off and the fake ghost is very scary, but they don’t scare the fox, they scare the neighbor who has tracked the fox to Pettson’s farm in the middle of the night.

It turns out that the fox has an injured leg, and that is the only reason that this sweet little creature would ever harm a chicken.

I read this book to Hattie a million times, and we always enjoyed it. But, it was always followed with a discussion about why I will be shooting any foxes we see on our farm….so, it was a teaching moment as well.

My Own Version Of Findus And The Fox (Maybe)

Well, everything comes full circle. I am currently living my own version of Findus And The Fox.

It seems like I will never stop talking about this trip that I took to Florida to wind up our summer. Actually, what I have to talk about today is loosely related to that trip only.

On my last night in Florida I called Autumm to say goodnight and visit for a while at the end of the day. She was actually out in our pasture at that moment collecting five dead chickens to dispose of. There were five dead ones out there in the same area. One had been chewed on slightly, or possibly pecked on my magpies. Another one was missing its head. And the rest didn’t display any evidence of how they had been killed.

This was not pleasant news to receive, but I was helpless to do anything since I was sitting in a hotel room in Orlando. Autumm had started back to work when she and Hattie got back from Florida. So, she was feeding the pigs and letting out the chickens at about 6am. When I am home I generally let the chickens out at around 7am, feed the pigs and then irrigate. So, I am out in the general area of the chickens for about 30 minutes before going off to do something different.

With the days getting shorter and Autumm letting the chickens out earlier, they were coming out of the coop when it was still pretty dark outside for these few days that I was still in Florida. And, since Autumm was heading off to work and Hattie was still in bed there was no human out there to disturb whatever predator this was that was killing them.

We did not have any proof that the chickens were killed first thing in the morning, but that seemed like the most likely time. I have had a fair amount of experience with chickens being killed by foxes. Two winters ago I shot three foxes on our property. All of them were jumping our fences and getting into our pastures, hunting our chickens. Even though I killed those foxes we still lost a lot of our chickens that winter. But through all of that I never saw a dead chicken. The foxes killed them for a reason and carried them off.

Whatever was killing the chickens while I was in Florida seemed like it was doing it for sport. Whatever it was, was obviously not trying to feed itself since it left the carcasses in the pasture. I tried to think of what I could do from a hotel room in Florida, and the only thing I could think of was to do research.

I did a search for chicken killers that would not carry the chickens off, and the one thing I found was a weasel. This really jumped out at me because the author said that they would kill chickens just for sport and leave the laying where they died. And it dawned on me that I had seen a weasel earlier in the summer.

One morning coming in from irrigating I saw little, yellow weasel in the grass. When it saw me it ran over into the tall grass where I had the tractor parked. This was actually the first weasel that I could ever recall seeing in Idaho, let alone on our farm. And it was just a few days later that the three of us were driving to Boise when I saw another one off the side of the road about 6 miles from our house. This was the second weasel I had ever seen in Idaho. I found it extremely strange that I had never seen one, and now I had seen two in separate locations. There must have been something about the winter that had allowed them to proliferate.

Autumm and I came up with a plan to let the chickens out later in the morning the next day when it was fully light. When I got home from the airport the next day we were not missing any more chickens. But, when I counted our chickens we only had 12. We had 18 when I left which meant that 6 had been killed that first day and Autumm didn’t find one. Or, another one had been killed the next day.

The carcass of that sixth chicken was never recovered. So, that threw a bit of wrinkle into my theory about the weasel. Then I remembered that a few years ago one of our neighbors had a bunch of chickens killed in their coop, but when they went out the next morning a couple of the dead birds were still there. They have pontificated that a fox had come into the coop, killed as many as it could, and then was hauling them off, one by one. But, they figured they had interrupted the fox before it could come back and get all of the dead birds.

So, this made it start to seem like it was more likely that a fox actually was killing the chickens at our place, and on that first night when I was still in Florida that Autumm had interrupted the fox before it could come back and get the rest of the dead birds.

This past weekend I took a class that started on Friday evening and went most of the day on Saturday. When I got home, after dark, on Friday night Autumm told me that only 9 chickens had come back to the coop, meaning that 3 more had been killed. I counted them the next morning before I let them out, and there were actually 10. That number has stayed the same all week, so 2 more had actually been killed. The carcasses of those two additional chickens that were killed on Friday have not been recovered, so this pushes the odds higher of this being a fox and not a weasel.

Also, this week the chickens have acted strange. They don’t burst out of the coop in the morning when I open their door. Actually, one of the mornings they didn’t come out at all. They stayed in their coop until late in the morning, content with the feed and water they had in there. And, every night this week they have been back in their coop early. So, whatever is hunting them is still out there, and they know it. It is probably coming up to the coop at night.

I have not seen a weasel on our farm since that first one, but I am convinced it is still here, hunting our chickens. Of all the other possible predators we could have at our place – dogs, coyotes, bobcats, cougars, hawks, raccoons, skunks, etc. I have eliminated them as the possible culprits.

Our chickens roam around the same pasture as our goats. If it were a dog or coyote I would expect to have some dead goats into addition to chickens – we do not.

If it were a bobcat, cougar or hawk I would expect the chickens to have been hauled off and killed one at a time. Those first five were not.

As far as raccoons or skunks go, the chickens have been totally protected in their coop at night, and that is where I would expect a raccoon or skunk to be able to catch them. On open ground I would not think that either of those two animals would have a chance of catching a chicken. So, I eliminated them as suspects as well.

So, the quest goes on. I am waiting to either see a fox or another weasel. If it is a weasel, I have no idea how to catch or kill it. If it sits still long enough I could possibly shoot it. I might be able to catch it in a live trap. If it is a fox, it is the slyest fox I have dealt with yet. Normally I will see them. Or, if I don’t the dogs will and they will start barking, alerting me to their presence. That has not happened yet either.

I will keep you updated if I figure this out.