Murder mystery most fowl

I AM living in the middle of a murder mystery, writes Dick Warner.

I have a small flock of hens, four in all ... or I did have. When I went to collect the eggs the other morning two of them were dead — one in the hen house and one in the corner of the run.

The initial examination of the scene produced few results. There were lots of feathers around but no discernible wounds on the bodies. The usual suspect, a fox, was ruled out.

My defences were all intact. There were no holes in the wire — a fact confirmed when the remaining hens stayed in the run. Any hole big enough for a fox to squeeze through is big enough for a hen to get out of and they avail of it instantly so that they can devastate the vegetable garden.

Two mornings later a third hen was dead. The body was in the same corner of the run but this time it had been decapitated and the head removed by pulling it through the mesh of the wire.

The remaining hen showed symptoms of post traumatic distress.

What could have done this? Something, and it really had to be predatory mammal, was killing hens in the night. It seemed to be small enough to squeeze through the mesh of the wire netting but strong enough to carry, or drag, the body of a mature laying hen out of the hen house and then across five or six metres of the run to the corner where I had found the bodies.

It seemed to kill without leaving any mark and, on its second visit, to have worked out that it couldn’t get its prey out of the run but it would be able to make off with a severed head. Sherlock Holmes had a method which eliminated the impossible and then assumed that what remained, however improbable, must be the truth. The only possibility was a male stoat.

Stoats are unique among Irish carnivores in that they regularly kill prey up to five times their own body weight with a surgical bite to the brain which leaves no visible trace. Males are more than twice the weight of females and average around 300 grams (for some reason they are much heavier in the south of the country than in the north). They regularly kill full grown rabbits weighing up to two kilos and drag them off — and a quick internet search turned up several cases of them killing hens.

The native Irish stoat is a distinct sub-species confined to this island and the Isle of Man. They are uncommon and beautiful animals and fully protected by law. What was I to do?

I have bought a live mammal trap and a joint of supermarket chicken as bait. If I catch it it’s going on a long car journey to a more suitable habitat without poultry.