Protecting chickens from weasels

We lost a bird this past winter to a weasel when the solar electronet was struggling with zero sun for a week. The primary lesson I learned was to rotate a backup battery weekly in the winter, with the second one recharging in the garage on a battery tender.

But I also learned the value of traps. What you see pictured here are a humane, no-kill raccoon trap and a smaller weasel trap.

Frankly, I did not know we even had weasels in our area until I compared all the signs from the kill to internet research. Weasels are very productive members of a forest ecosystem, so I don’t want to proactively hunt them. But placing these humane traps between the forest and our chickens serves as an inexpensive barrier to keep both of us happy.

The bait recommended to me by a local trapper is cheap cat food + marshmallows. Yes, marshmallows. Raccoons in particular can’t resist them.  🙂