OT Whats Gonna Die Next (kinda graphic)

What am I gunning for?

Stoooopid ole Guinea been through snow, sleet, cold arse rain and an occasional fly by with the Jack Russell but she couldn't escape this.

Anybody got any clues what did this. Relocated a coon 18 months or so when it got a couple chickens. (Naw that one didn't come back).

Set the trap last night with a HoHo but was still empty this morning.

kinda looks like a fisher from the tracks. also called a fisher cat, were pretty rare but they have made a comback in the eastern us. here is a link
fisher

coon track it appears to me.do your neighbors a favor and drown the stinking things while you have it in the trap!! LOL!! try baiting your trap with large marshmellows for coons.A skunk will generally either just bite one in the head, or take the head and leave the rest though,try putting some canned cat food in trap also,with the marshmellows.scatter a few of them around the outside also so they can be seen.I assume your using a box trap.If so no need to try to hide it,set it out where you can see it from a fair distance and check it.If you catch a skunk ,hold a old tarp,or sheet in front of you as you walk toward trap,and lay it over it.Most of the time they wont spray unless you shake cage quite a bit.If you want to get all the skunks around, shoot the first one in the trap and let him spray,Ive caught as many as 13 in a single trap set right out in the middle of a feild on bare ground.One right after another,worse thing I ever had to kill chickens were spotted skunks,we called them civet cats when i was a kid.they are protected now I think, a normal skunk smells like perfume compared to one of those little rats,and you cant seal a chicken house up well enough to keep one out once it starts getting birds.

I'll 2nd the guess as a fisher. Doesn't really look like a coon track to me. A fisher got about 1/2 of my dad's chickens last summer, before I 'sedated' him.

Have to agree. Weasel, mink, pine marten or fischer. All "cousins" for sure. You can check the tracks size, fischers are a good size weasel, probably 8 lbs plus.

I attached a picture of pine marten tracks in the snow. I have seen weasels/mink and pine marten all the tracks look like this.

Last year I had a weasel that would kill my chickens yet would leave my muscovy and toulouse geese alone. Still have one more roaming around.

When do these guys do their dirty work? Don't know when this happened, but the guineas usually stay on the roost until they get some good light.

Never seen or heard of anything like them fishers around western Hanover, Va. But the track just don't look like a coon, possum or skunk. No toes-just claw looking marks.

fisher hunts at nite. excellent climbers. have been known to grab a house cat right thru a screen window. they have a wicked set of claws, get about 14 lbs. one of the few animals that can kill and eat a porcupine.

DOn't really know much about them, but the one in Dad's henhouse was there when I was almost done milking, about 7:30 in the morning (summer, so full light). They are an animal that you may have, but just don't see.

Too big and too deep for a mink or weasel. Big claws,. I vote fischer also.

What is the size (width in inches) of that track? 1 1/2 inches for mink/weasel. 2+ inches for fischer.

Gordo

Gordo

Worked late today so I didn't have any natural light when I got home (wait a minute a gotta can rite here) but went out and found that track again. Fat pony hadn't stepped on it.

Sticking the ruler in the hole its almost 1 3/4.

If ya'll Virginia guys have ever seen one of these fishers around these parts, please chime in.

Fisher, also known as black cat or black panther. Back in the '50's West Virginia stocked'em from Canada & they've become widespread in the mountains. Believe Pa. stocked'em too & NY always had'em.

Fischers are difficult to trap because, like a mink, they prefer to eat only what they have killed. But you have an advantage here. That fischer will come back to drag that fowl off.
Put it in a inside corner and out two leg traps in front of it. Bury them and cover them with feathers and light vegetation.

Thank you GLENNSTER for the excellent references!

I had the same kind of attack on chickens - lost 2 in 2 days, same neck knawing. It was a opossum- I got him on the 3rd day with cat food in a trap outside the coop.
I'm also in Va...

Thanks to all that have posted.

Jose, I hope you have the right varmit. When I saw that fisher cat all I could think of was the old Jerry Clower story about shooting up here amongst us cause somebody needs some relief.

Don"t have any leg traps and they would not be too good with the dogs.

Caught a nutty tree rat today with the havahart. Got a can of sardines and a hoho in there now.

We live out in the bushes so it could be anything.