Saw a Fisher cat tonight

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ipoGSD

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Just turning dusk and it ran by in the way back where the dump trucks are parked.

My rabbits still haven't spent the night in their hutch because I'm afraid it would be too cold. The other night it dropped down to 38. So I don't know if that's too much of a temp jump-from inside temps to the 30s-40s..

Anyway how worried should I be with seeing a Fisher cat about 100ft from where my rabbits will be housed?

If I have good latches on my doors they should be safe tho. Correct? They can't break the cage wire can they?
 
Worry. I don't have good fisher cat proofing tips because I quit keeping animals outside on the property I saw a fishercat. I didn't have the means to build fort knox of a pen/cages then. I actually went to rabbits from chickens because I could confine the rabbits in a building and they would not get eaten by the fishercat and coons that climb posts/wire and find ways to break into pens or cages.
 
So after some research, seems more than likely there isn't very many in my immediate area because they have their own territories.

I think I'll get a humane trap and see if I can catch and relocate some.

They are too cute.. wonder how ferret like they are :)
 
If they were mine, I'd build towards making the fisher less of a threat.
Predators can wander in from new territories at any point and wreak some havoc before you know they are present.
It might seem extreme, but my cages all hang inside of a roofed wire aviary, which amounts to a very large second cage surrounding the smaller rabbit cages.
The bottom 3 feet of the aviary is also covered in hardware cloth to add extra ground level defense.

The two layers of wire (with a space in between) were necessary to prevent hawks, opossums, cats, and raccoons from reaching in to the cages to grab kits.
I just have way more predators than I could kill or trap, even if I was so inclined (which I'm not.)

It was a fisherman/trapper from Kodiac Island who told me that two wire layers (with a couple inches of space between) was standard procedure for rabbit pens where he lived.
It is expensive, but worth the good nights sleep for me.
 
I don't have fishers here, but foxes and marten. I fenced in the hutches, with a trapdoor and an alarm, every predator that thinks it's a good idea to go near the hutches gets caught, and I'm there within a minute. If I kill it or not depends on the situation, I killed the last fox, but of course just scare away cats.
If a healthy fox gets into the trap (not one of these mange ridden zombies) I will give it a really bad scare, and some pepper spray, if my rabbitry is in its territory I think I'll be pretty save from any foxes in the near future then. Better than just killing whatever stalks my rabbits, I think.
Anyway, now I put up a wildlife camera and disabled the alarm for the time beeing because the last weeks only hedgehogs admired that funny madman wielding a shotgun in the middle of the night.

Had no problems with marten yet, they are here, but the hutch wire should be strong enough to keep them out.
 
Fishers maintain very large territories but that does not make them less dangerous. They will mark you as a target and every few days return. The unpredictable appearance makes them hard to shoot or trap. They are also very intelligent and usually won't walk into traps easily. Mine just ripped things out of the side of the trap if possible and if not ripped live critters through the wire instead. They may also bend door wire enough to get in depending how your doors are attached. Means the latch doesn't matter a whole lot unless it covers a large area. You can do the double wire idea without enclosing a huge area. Just putting a second layer a few inches from the first on all sides but the front and then making sure your doors are sturdy at all corners. Then the rabbits can move away from the predator. I did similar with my herb garden fence for letting my guinea pigs run loose inside. Having a predator near your cages can cause losses though without actually touching one. Rabbits will try to run in their cage and injure themselves. A benefit of enclosing the whole area is the predator is kept farther away and spooks the rabbits less.
 

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