Lakin Farm

One of our chickens was killed by this mink yesterday. It happened during the day sometime between 10:30 and midday.

I know this because the bird that was killed had been sitting on eggs, and I was keeping an eye on her, giving her food etc.

At first I thought she was with the other two birds, and I was cursing her for leaving her eggs to go cold. Then after a bit of searching I realised something was wrong.

The last time we had birds taken there was a trail of feathers and bits of chicken which could be followed down to the bottom of our fields.

This time there was nothing. Just a couple of feathers by the chicken house.

It took me ages to find the body, which had been dragged under an old duck hut we have by the chicken hut.

I bought a squirrel trap from our local hardware guy, who advised that I cut a leg off the chicken and use it as bait. You can just just make out the foot in the picture.

It worked a treat and John Luke was very excited this morning to find a (very noisy and unhappy) mink in the trap.

After I had ‘humanely’ dispatched the little swine, Abigail and I walked to the bottom fields to find it “a new place to live”.

Abby still doesn’t properly understand death yet. She asked “Is that the mink that ate our chicken. Did you shoot it in the head and through the brain so that it’s dead?” (which I thought was a very impressive understanding of what had happened), and then a bit later said “If we leave it in the sun the mink will warm up and come alive again”.