Well, starting about 2 weeks ago, our chicken flock has slowly been depreciating – at a rate of 1 hen every few days. This past week, it was upped to 1 chicken dead every other day – always around dusk – we would find a warm body with the tell-tale signs of weasel attacks – the hole in the neck area with blood sucked out.
This past weekend our son saw the critter and attempted to skewer it with a pitch fork. But last night, it returned and killed one of our large, black austro-lorps.
This afternoon, the weasel got brave and attacked a large turkey tom in broad daylight. Nathan was going into the barn when he saw it on the turkey – he hit it with the blade of his machete (he had been hacking weeds with it) and it took off and ran straight into a metal trashcan (used for feed). he said it left blood on the trashcan, so it must be bleeding pretty badly.
Nathan and Marilyn butchered the turkey, since it was still alive, but mortally wounded. he said “it’s ok dad, it was Thanksgiving”.
YOU see, Nathan had named the 3 remaining toms – Thanksgiving, Christmas and Tom. Tom was to be the sire for the hens we have…
Our flock has been reduced from 75 layers to 44 in the course of 2 months, so we are down to about half the egg production we had in June. Instead of 6 dozen per day, we are getting between 2 and 3 dozen.
We ordered more hens, and have about 10 – 15 left of 50 we had been raising, that should start laying this next month.
By February, we should be back to 6 or 7 dozen eggs per day – but in the meantime, I have to put some 1/2″ hardware cloth all around the bottom of the barn walls – immersed in concrete, so the weasels, minks and other vermin couldn’t possibly dig under it. And I thought I was finished with that part of the barn addition…