Minkenry Hunting Stories For Thioⁿbasabe'

[Minkenry 1,044]

This is pretty amazing stuff mate, If you were down the pub telling my this I'd write you off as a fruit cake! But it's all there in the vids you post.

You must have a natural born gift for this stuff.

You have a fan!!

 

Thank you! I would think the same, had I been told you could train a mink to ignore chickens! To be honest I still can't believe it has worked so far. I'm still holding my breath though, and realize that one little accident could change things, and turn her irreversibly on to chickens.

[Minkenry 1,044]

So do please tell us how you trained her to ignore chickens. I find it hard to imagine any mustelid ignoring feathery, clucking things running about!

 

So I raised her around a few chickens. I let them run free around her cage, and fed them near her cage. I wanted her to constantly see, hear, and smell chickens, but never get to catch them. I also took her on a leash around chickens, and so she would be even more tempted, but unable to try to catch one. Plus I took her swimming at the park where there were lots of ducks. Ducks on the water are close to impossible for a mink to catch, especially if the duck sees the mink first, and the ducks know this. They will swim right up to a mink, basically mocking it because they know they can get away. This further taught her to just ignore birds. The real key was the entire time I was giving her rats to kill, sometimes near the birds.

 

Then while I was raising her I constantly gave her rats to kill for her caching training. Thus ingraining it in her head the rats were prey, and birds like chickens and ducks were just part of the scenery. The real key was the entire time I was giving her rats to kill, sometimes near the birds. She learned that she "couldn't" catch birds, and could catch rats. Eventually she started ignoring the birds all together and looking for rats.

 

Here's a video of when she was younger and I was training her to ignore birds....

 

[dogmad riley 1,344]

Great stuff keep at it. That mink retrieves better than mist dogs. The hard work is really paying off.

 

You have got to show us a vid of the mink working rabbit that would be great.

 

When fully trained how long can you hunt with them in a day?

[Minkenry 1,044]

Great stuff keep at it. That mink retrieves better than mist dogs. The hard work is really paying off.

 

You have got to show us a vid of the mink working rabbit that would be great.

 

When fully trained how long can you hunt with them in a day?

 

Depending on the conditions about 4-5 hours.

[dogmad riley 1,344]

The mink is a beatiful creature and a handy one at that wish we could use them over here you are a very lucky man and you have a way with them that is brilliant. You need to show us them working rabbit.

 

They work rat great how maby could you account for on any given day?

[Minkenry 1,044]

The mink is a beatiful creature and a handy one at that wish we could use them over here you are a very lucky man and you have a way with them that is brilliant. You need to show us them working rabbit.

 

They work rat great how maby could you account for on any given day?

 

It obviously depends on where and how you hunt. I'm in it more for the chase than the numbers. For me one awesome chase is more exciting than 10 quick easy kills. For me it's quality over quantity, but I have hunted for quantity as well. If you set up nets to catch the fleeing rats, between you and the mink you can catch as many are available I would assume. One REALLY EASY way to rack up high numbers would be to take a gun out with you hunting muskrats! Muskrats flee to the most open spot they can find surrounded by deep water when chased by a mink. If you had a gun with you, you could easily pick off almost every muskrat your mink flushes. However, this isn't very sporting to me. It's like shooting fish in a barrel. If all I wanted were a bunch of dead muskrats, I'd use traps, not a mink. But I'm sure that for others it would be quite fun, and I don't have a problem if others want to hunt like this, it's just not my way of hunting.

 

So back to your original question. I usually just feed the mink up after their first catch, and only occasionally go for multiples, and only with a very experienced mink. If I go for multiple kills too early in a mink's training, it can potentially ruin their caching training. I do, however, try to take my mink hunting twice a day whenever possible, so between the two hunts I can obviously get multiple kills a day.

Edited October 13, 2013 by Minkenry

[Minkenry 1,044]

Here's the story behind Thioⁿba's 5th rat. About 11:30 this afternoon my friend Cade and I took Thioⁿba to go hunt rock squirrels were she had caught her first squirrel. We searched until about 2:30, but no squirrels. It appears they got smart and left the country.

So we then took Thioⁿba to the park with a stream running through it where she caught her first wild rat. I turned her loose and she began searching for rats. After about 10-15 minutes of searching, she found a big rat who she flushed out of its burrow into the stream. Silly little Thioⁿba still hasn't figured out the seemingly obvious diving under the water rat trick, and the rat disappeared under the water leaving Thioⁿba wondering where it went.

Just like the first rat we chased in that park, Thioⁿba still hadn't figured out that the rats were sneaking away under the water. I was determined to teach her to look for the rats under water. I grabbed the rat by the tail, and pulled her out of the water. Then I got Thioⁿba's attention and threw it in the water, but I accidentally threw it too close to the bank, and the rat surfaced and tried to run into it's burrow. Thioⁿba saw it, and grabbed the rat, pulling it out of it's burrow, but the rat got loose, and dived back under the water.

I thought for sure Thioⁿba would get it and start to chase the rat underwater, but she couldn't figure out where the rat disappeared to. So as the rat tried to swim away, I captured it myself, for the second time, and then walked into the middle of the stream, calling Thioⁿba to come to me. She paddled out to where I was, and I waved the rat in front of her face. She got all excited and tried to grab it from me, but I tossed the rat out away from us, and into the middle of the stream.

I was worried for a moment that the confused rat might surface swim, instead of dive under the water's surface, thus making it easy for Thioⁿba to see and catch her. Fortunately the rat dived under the water like I hoped, and tried to escape like it did before.

FINALLY Thioⁿba got what I had been trying to show her, and stuck her head under the water looking for the rat. She saw it trying to sneak away under the water, and dived down after it. There was a short underwater chase, and then Thioⁿba grabbed the rat by the back leg, wrapped up around the rat, secured it's head, then surfaced and swam to shore to put the rat in her box.

I really hope that she learned something from this little hunt. It is so weird that she couldn't figure out where the rat was going. It's so obvious! I mean come on! If you look under water for fish, why can't you figure out to look under water to find a rat? I guess it's just because this is only the second time in her life that she's ever seen a rat swim. Her whole life rats were land prey (I always gave her starter rats on land, so she hadn't seen them near water until we actually started hunting), and fish were under water prey. She just is having a hard time grasping the fact that rats are actually both land AND water prey. I sure hope my little lesson today where I kept throwing her rat in the water until she finally dived under water for it helped her to figure that out. We'll just have to see what she does next time we hunt for rats along a stream.

Baby mink are just so silly sometimes! I mean come on! My buddy Jake's mink Loki figured out that rats swim under water, and put on a pretty cool underwater rat chase on ether her first or second rat hunt!

 

 

 

Edited October 13, 2013 by Minkenry

[Minkenry 1,044]

We caught rat #6 today. This morning I didn't go hunting because Thioⁿba was a little too heavy from her day off (I don't work my animals on Sunday for religious reasons). She weighed in at 880 grams. Last time I hunted with her at 860, she cached, but was a little hesitant because her food drive was a little too low. I could tell she was contemplating whether she should cache her rat, or just leave it and go for another.

I did't want to risk her having the same temptation, especially since she was 20 grams heavier than the last time, so instead of hunting with her, I took her to a stream near my house, and planted a dead rat on a string for her to find and cache. I wanted to teach her to look for rats underwater. So what I did was drag a rat along the bank to lay a sent trail, and then hide it in a bush right by the water. I then had the string go across the stream to where I could easily grab it and pull the rat into the water when she approached the hidden dead rat. There was a small weight attached to the rat, to make sure it sunk to the bottom of the stream when I pulled it in the water.

I turned her loose and she started following the rat scent, but then stopped when she saw me walk ahead to grab the string. Instead of following the sent she followed my body language to figure out what area the rat was hidden in, then used the string to pin point where the rat was. I pulled the rat into the water when she neared it, and seeing the string going down under the water she dove down to the end of the string, and got the rat.

NOT how I was hoping things would go! This mink has had one too many starter rats! If she could read wild game as good as she reads my body language, I'd have quite the little hunting mink on my hands!

So I fed her a portion of her meal, and while she was eating it out of my hands, I snuck her rat out of her box, and into my pocket. Then after she had finished the meat I had given her, I locked her in her box while I set up a second scenario.

Again I laid another sent trail, but this time I made sure to fully hide the string under leaves, and under the water. I also made sure I gave her mixed signals with my body language, so she would have to use her nose to find the rat. She tried to read me for a few moments, then quickly figured out that ether I didn't know where the rat was, or I wasn't going to show her, and she went to searching on her own. She quickly picked up on the trail, ran too the rat, and then I pulled the rat into the water with the string before she could grab it on land, and I dragged it around under water for her to catch like a fish. She did good at finding the rat on her own that time, so I fed her the rest of her meal and we went home.

I took her hunting at the chicken coop again tonight, and we caught another 250 gram male rat. It's kind of funny, because this is the second male rat she's caught that weighed exactly 250 grams.

[Minkenry 1,044]

When I first got to the chicken coop this morning, I released Thioⁿba and she wandered around for a while, with out any luck finding a rat. The rats had apparently moved to a different area in the coop, for fear of the mink that had been walking in and killing them off one by one. As time went on and Thioⁿba continued to unsuccessfully search for a rat, I began to worry that she might get bored and turn on one of the chickens or turkeys who have been growing increasingly curious of her. I started shooing the chickens out into their run, so they wouldn't be such a temptation for her.

Finally Thioⁿba went into a hole in the old rotten tree growing through the middle of the coop, and boom! A rat popped out of the tree, and skittered along the boards in the rafters of the coop, then disappeared. Thioⁿba came shooting out, and then climbed up in the rafters, following the rat's sent around and around the rafters. She found the rat, and chased it down out of the rafters, and across the floor, and down into a hole.

The rat squeezed into a hole Thioⁿba couldn't fit down, and she dug and squeezed for a few minutes, then gave up and came out looking for the other rats. Along with diving under water to catch an escaping rat, this lazy mink needs to learn to dig! It's ok, it took Missy a month or more before she learned to dig out rats. Unlike ferrets, mink aren't as pron to digging holes. Just look at their front claws, and you'll see a significant difference. Mink can dig, they just aren't made for it like a ferret is.

Anyway, Thioⁿba went back into the hollow tree, and rats started running EVERYWHERE!! I can't even begin to count the rats that ran out of that tree! But one unfortunate male never ran out again. I heard it squeaking, and lots of thumping around as Thioⁿba maneuvered around to finally give it the kill bite that crushed its head.

I was so excited that she had finally caught one, and that she didn't once go for a chicken during her search for the rats! Now I just patiently waited for her to bring out the rat.... but to no avail. I heard Thioⁿba climbing around in the tree, and one last rat popped out, but still no Thioⁿba with her rat. Then finally out Thioⁿba came with no rat in her mouth.

I was like, "Well crap! The day that she doesn't cache while hunting has finally came, and it HAS TO be in a rotten tree where I can't dig it out!" Thioⁿba then went over to the rabbit cages and tried to pull the rabbits through the wire. I grabbed her by her tail, and took her back to the hole in the tree, nearest where I heard the rat squeal, and put her in the hole, while thumping the box. She went in the hole, and came out on the other side of the tree, and went back to trying to get the rabbits. I grabbed her again, and this time took the food out and crinkled the bag and let her sniff the meat, then put her down the hole after her rat again. This went on for another 10-15 minutes before FINALLY she went in and brought out her rat. I fed her up and took her home.

Rat # 7 was a male who weighed in at 226 grams. We got him at the same chicken coop we've been hunting at for the last week or so. This was the first time we've hunted at the chicken coop where Thioⁿba actually had to work for her meal. It took her over a half an hour of hunting before she finally caught a rat. I'm glad the rats are finally starting to wise up, because before today it has been far too easy for her every time we've gone there!

I thought about what had happened as I walked home. I realized that I had not reacted as I should have. When Thioⁿba had not immediately cached, I should have given her one, MAYBE two tries to correct her mistake, and then taken her home to wait in her cage for 2-4 hours, and then brought her back to try again when she was more hungry. Well, you live and you learn, and I'm just happy that she finally DID cache her rat. I just hope that she learned a positive lesson from this (if I'm teasing you with the food, the only way you'll get it is if you cache correctly) instead of a negative one (you can take your time caching, because I'm going to feed you whenever you decide to get around to it). We'll just have to see what happens tonight when we go hunting. Hopefully it will be a quick cache like she's been doing.

[Minkenry 1,044]

I took Thioⁿba back to the chicken coop, hoping we wouldn't have a repeat of this morning. She went straight in the same rotted out hollow tree, and I noticed something I hadn't really been paying attention to before. I now know part of why she has such a ridiculously good hunting average, and also why she has been catching rats so quickly. Unlike the other mink I've seen, Thioⁿba actually stalks her prey like a cat. Instead of just rushing into a burrow that smells like it has rats in it, she creeps in ever so slowly and quietly. Like a cat stalking a bird, she creeps slowly, carefully taking each step as she goes, and then DIVING in at the last moment. I have noticed her doing this several times, but for some reason it has never clicked in my head what she's doing. This is part of why she has been catching these rats so ridiculously easily. This whole time I've been blaming the rats for just being stupid, but she doesn't HAVE to chase the rats down because she catches them before the chase even begins. It's really quite cleaver, and different from the usual rush in and run them down tactic used by most mustelids. This makes me super excited to see what this mink can do on muskrats! Man if she can nail them the way she does brown rats we are going to have a FUN season! I do doubt her ability to handle muskrats like some of my past mink, however, because she is more timid, and seems to have considerably weaker jaws than any of my past mink. We'll just have to wait and see how things go. Maybe she'll just learn to make up in brains for what she lacks in brawn.

So, back to my story. Thioⁿba crept ever so slowly and carefully into a hole at the base of the rotted out tree trunk, and then pounced on an unsuspecting rat. The rat got loose and ran most of the way up the tree (while still inside the hole system in the tree's rotted out center) and we both saw and heard the rat being captured again, just inside of an exit hole that was high above our heads. The rat wriggled loose again and ran back down the hole system with Thioⁿba following closely after it. The rat popped out of the same hole at the base of the tree that Thioⁿba had originally entered through, and she popped out too, nailing the rat right at our feet.

We were all excited from the chase, and happy for her success, until she jumped back inside the rotten tree trunk with her rat! I tried a couple times to coax her into bringing her rat out by teasing her with the crinkling plastic bag that had her meat, but after coming out of the hole for the second time without the rat, I packed her up and took her home. It was 10:00 pm and I left her in her cage without dinner until 1:45 am, so almost 3 hours. Then I dragged myself out of bed, and took her back to the chicken coop to see if she was ready to cache her dead rat correctly.

She went in the tree, I gave her a moment before teasing her out with the crinkling plastic meat bag, she came out without the rat and tried to get the meat from me, but I sent her back down the hole, and she disappeared for a moment. I then teased her back with the bag, and she AGAIN returned with no rat. I said, "Ok this is your LAST CHANCE!" and sent her down the hole one more time. She must have understood me because she went straight to the rat and brought it back, caching it in her box like a good little girl.

So frustrating that she cached wrong, but it's nice that she is figuring out that my teasing her is really me just saying "go get your rat". I'm going to give her one more shot, and if she messes up again any time soon, we're going to take a step back and do some more caching training.

This last rat she caught was #8 and was a 220 gram male.

[Guest vin]

I think your Minkenry expeditions should get a section of there own on this site because it is too good to not be sharing with the whole site.

 

I tip my hat to you in appreciation of your amazing talents.

[Minkenry 1,044]

I think your Minkenry expeditions should get a section of there own on this site because it is too good to not be sharing with the whole site.

 

I tip my hat to you in appreciation of your amazing talents.

 

Wow, thank you very much

[Joe67 239]

I think your Minkenry expeditions should get a section of there own on this site because it is too good to not be sharing with the whole site.

 

I tip my hat to you in appreciation of your amazing talents.

 

 

I'd second that, Subforum or forum! A good read mate, keep the updates coming

[Minkenry 1,044]

So the last couple day's I've taken the time to reinforce Thioⁿba's caching training. Since she was having issues with caching in that tree, I stopped hunting for a few days, and went back to caching training. She was doing good, so I took her hunting last night didn't have any luck at all. We were hunting in a chicken coop with a wood shed near it, and we saw a couple rats run out, but they escaped her. One ran down a hole she couldn't fit down, and the other run up into the engine of an old car on cinder blocks. She ran around in the car engine for quite a while, but she couldn't get to the rat. So I hid a dead rat for her to find and cache, and then called it a night.

 

One interesting thing that happened during the hunt was while she was in the chicken coop, she came out of a hole that led right to a roosting chicken. She walked right between the sleeping chickens legs and started sniffing under the chicken's wing! I could tell she was thinking of taking a bite, so I told her "NOOOOO!" and she went back down the hole to hunt for rats. Later that night as she was getting frustrated by not being able to catch a rat, and she climbed up to another spot with roosting turkeys and she sniffed their legs. Again I told her "NOOOOO!" and she climbed back down away from the turkeys! I was pretty dang proud of her for resisting the temptation and listening to me!

This morning I took her hunting again, and we went to the same wood pile as the night before. A few minutes into the hunt I heard her kill a rat, but I couldn't get her to cache it. She was too excited about the hunt and wanted to get more rats. She chased them around and around, and I was sitting there trying to decide what to do.

She was 836 grams this morning, but with the sunny warm weather this apparently wasn't low enough. I teased her out with the crinkling bag a couple times, but she didn't really seem to care. She wanted to hunt, not eat. I was rather disappointed, and still not sure what to do. I decided to pack her up, and take her home, but she didn't want to come out of the wood pile. Just too many rats and too much fun.

I then heard something climbing in the tree just above the shed. There was a BIG old rat that had climbed out on the roof of the wood shed, then up on a overhanging branch. I watched it climb all the way to the main part of the tree. I went back to looking into the wood shed to see what Thioⁿba was doing.

Then I looked back in the tree, and the rat was gone. I walked to the base of the tree just as the rat was getting to the ground. It saw me and ran under a tarp that was on the ground near the tree. I pulled out my whistle and started blowing. Thioⁿba knows the whistle only means one of two things. Ether I have spotted game in a really good spot for her to get it, or I had the lure ready for her to chase and catch. She came flying out of the wood shed, and ran over to me. I pointed at the tarp and said "Here here here!!!" and she shot under the tarp. The rat tried to run out from under the tarp, but she nailed it just before it could get out. They rolled around for a quick second, then the rat escaped and ran to the tree and started climbing, but Thioⁿba pulled it off the tree and wrapped it up, giving it a kill bite to the back of the head.

As soon as I knew she had the rat secured, I ran back to the shed and grabbed the carry box. I put it on the ground and tapped the box, and Thioⁿba promptly brought the rat to me and cached it.

This was rat #9 and it was a rather large male. It only weighed in at 246 grams, but it sure looked like the largest rat she's caught yet. So ether my judgement was off, or this rat just had less body fat and food in its digestive tract.

So now I have some decisions to make. It seems to me that the main reason we are having problems with Thioⁿba not caching has to do with the availability of too many rats in the same place at the same time. I might be able to over ride her desire to hunt by dropping her weight, thus increasing her food drive. But I don't know if I should do that, or just stop hunting in areas with large colonies of rats. If she catches the only rat around, she will be more likely to cache it and take her reward, since there isn't a lot of game close by tempting her. One easy way to do this would be to switch her over to muskrats. They don't live in huge colonies like brown rats, so she wouldn't be as tempted to continue hunting after making a kill. Plus the kills are usually harder to make, so by the time she catches something she should be quite tired and hungry. I'll put some more thought into this, and make my decision soon.

Edited October 19, 2013 by Minkenry

[barry lurcher 27]

fab amazing total respect for u and the mink , got to ask have they sunk there teeth into yet cause i am thinking they gotta bite like a pitbull !!! , keep the videos coming great watching