Thinning the Herd

Each night for the past couple of nights, I've been setting four walk-in cage traps with the bloody chicken guts I saved and froze.  My goal is to catch the mink that have moved into our area and are wreaking havoc.  My neighbor to the west lost all of his birds a week ago.  My neighbor to the east called and told Tricia last night he lost a guinea and eight hens.  It is strangely silent in the mornings without roosters crowing and chickens roaming across the 3 acre pasture scratching for bugs and worms.

In the past few nights I've caught one big raccoon and two possums.  Although not an experienced trapper, I've been trapping for years to catch raccoons in my crawfish ponds and varmints that kill our chickens.  One thing I've learned is that the lowly possum must be on the low end of the intelligence scale.  Invariably, they are the first critters you catch in the trap.

It may be that they are dull-witted.  It may be that they are more numerous than all the other predators or it may be a combination of the two.  One thing is for certain, a possum is an ugly, repulsive animal and I don't mind trapping them.  Will they kill chickens?  Yes, but primarily chicks and I read that they will eat eggs.  I don't think these guys are my problem, but are collateral damage as I thin out the herd to get to the minks.

Since possums are so prevalent and numerous, they hit the traps first overnight, smelling the blood and  setting the traps off or eating the bait.  This ruins the party for the minks and makes it hard to catch the mink.  I've baited back up again tonight all four traps.  We'll see how we did in the morning.  For those who aren't enamored with blog posts heavy on chicken death and trapping, I'll be moving to another topic Sunday night.