- Joined
- Aug 22, 2012
- Messages
- 4,122
Doh! it took me all day to twigg this one.Let me guess....a mulberry stump?
-brino
-
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Weasel moves in to the new shop...
- Thread starter cathead
- Start date
- Joined
- Feb 7, 2013
- Messages
- 2,489
I chased Herman the ermine around the shop twice today and he holed up in a pile of planed one inch
boards. I't's not clear if he can get out of the building as it is fairly tight now. My friend has a Havahart trap
so will try that soon and he will be hungry if he cant find an exit...
boards. I't's not clear if he can get out of the building as it is fairly tight now. My friend has a Havahart trap
so will try that soon and he will be hungry if he cant find an exit...
- Joined
- Jan 2, 2014
- Messages
- 8,853
"Herman the Ermine" sounds like a great name for a kids tv show!
Queue up the Benny Hill music.
-brino
Queue up the Benny Hill music.
-brino
- Joined
- Feb 1, 2015
- Messages
- 9,625
We live in a century old house and despite my efforts to seal up any openings, mice are still able to infiltrate. Our tactics are to set traps until there is no more activity and then we can usually relax for a while. Last week, the wife saw a couple of mice scurrying in the basement so I set five of the old style Victor traps. I caught one mouse before the afternoon and reset the trap for the night.
The next morning, the wife emptied two traps but informed me that I would have to empty a third trap because there was a disgusting half eaten mouse in it and she wasn't going to touch it. The mouse had most of a hind leg eaten, along with its ribs laid bare. I know that there is no opening large enough for a weasel to get in which leaves a shrew as the logical culprit. Later that day another mouse was trapped and its eyeball and surrounding tissue was missing.
Shrews have incredibly high metabolic rates and are purported to eating their body weight daily. They are capable of killing mice which might explain why I haven't caught any more mice. Unless the shrew goes back outside, though, it won't survive long as its food supply is limited (assuming that it doesn't come upstairs where the dog's food is).
On another, note, we put the dog out for his nightly constitutional last week and he was slow to come back. Earlier that night, the coyotes were carrying up a storm behind the house. The next morning, we again put the dog out and again, he wouldn't return immediately when called. I threw on some boots and started off on a trail along the creek behind our house. A short distance down the trail, I spotted the dog by a deer carcass laying in the creek.
I suspect that the coyotes had chased down a deer that managed to crawl into the creek before it died. The hind quarter had a fair amount of meat eaten. Later that fay, I dragged the deer out of the creek on the opposite shore where the coyotes could finish their feasting. Our dog will not cross the creek so we can be sure that he won't be chewing on the carcass.
I looked for signs of an injury or gunshot wound that might explain the deer not being able to evade the coyotes but found nothing obvious. I suppose that there could have been a wound that was obscured by the feasting. Another thought was that it was infected with CWD as it would incapacitate the deer sufficiently to allow the kill.
Country living!
The next morning, the wife emptied two traps but informed me that I would have to empty a third trap because there was a disgusting half eaten mouse in it and she wasn't going to touch it. The mouse had most of a hind leg eaten, along with its ribs laid bare. I know that there is no opening large enough for a weasel to get in which leaves a shrew as the logical culprit. Later that day another mouse was trapped and its eyeball and surrounding tissue was missing.
Shrews have incredibly high metabolic rates and are purported to eating their body weight daily. They are capable of killing mice which might explain why I haven't caught any more mice. Unless the shrew goes back outside, though, it won't survive long as its food supply is limited (assuming that it doesn't come upstairs where the dog's food is).
On another, note, we put the dog out for his nightly constitutional last week and he was slow to come back. Earlier that night, the coyotes were carrying up a storm behind the house. The next morning, we again put the dog out and again, he wouldn't return immediately when called. I threw on some boots and started off on a trail along the creek behind our house. A short distance down the trail, I spotted the dog by a deer carcass laying in the creek.
I suspect that the coyotes had chased down a deer that managed to crawl into the creek before it died. The hind quarter had a fair amount of meat eaten. Later that fay, I dragged the deer out of the creek on the opposite shore where the coyotes could finish their feasting. Our dog will not cross the creek so we can be sure that he won't be chewing on the carcass.
I looked for signs of an injury or gunshot wound that might explain the deer not being able to evade the coyotes but found nothing obvious. I suppose that there could have been a wound that was obscured by the feasting. Another thought was that it was infected with CWD as it would incapacitate the deer sufficiently to allow the kill.
Country living!