“Farming with Family, Working in Nature”, is Curiousfarmer’s new motto. I borrowed this motto from a ranch, “Ranching with Family, Working with Nature.” I changed “Ranching” to “Farming” and “With” to “In”, because “Working with Nature” implies a level of cooperation by Nature, which doesn’t exist. I love Nature, but Nature doesn’t give a flip about Curiousfarmer.
The photo above shows an image I captured via trail cam after 98 chickens were killed in one night, photo below. You can see a few live near the dead. 30 were left alive, and they would have been quickly killed if I hadn’t moved them to a safer location.
One mink did all the killing. He only slit their throats, one after another. To the mink’s credit, he did return later to eat the dead birds, which is how I captured his image.
It seems like there is nothing tastier than a chicken on a farm. But predation is unpredictable. The only prediction I can make is you will have problems eventually. Last year the first and last group of chickens had zero predation. The middle two groups had quite a bit of trouble from raccoons reaching under and grabbing and eating on a chicken. We never had anything like this mink though.
If you would like to try our chicken, this Saturday will probably be your last chance before we sell out. I think we’re going to refocus on our beef, pork, and eggs, and leave the broiler chickens to someone else. We’ll also probably raise turkeys and butcher on the farm like the past two years, as turkeys are fun, and some of you really enjoy our turkeys.
Posted by Curiousfarmer 
