A mink farm in Cavendish, Newfoundland is under criticism from another farmer in the area who alleges that the number of escaped minks have increased recently, leading to attacks on his chickens.
“About a month and a half ago, all of a sudden it was mink everywhere,” says Thomas Dobbie. “I had new chickens, they were in their fifth month, just starting to lay. Then I had an attack and two of them were killed. I tried to beef up my cage that I have here and the next week two more were killed.”
Dobbie says there have always been mink in the area of his farm, which is associated with his son Terry’s GrowDat organic farm. However, he attributes the rapidly increased numbers to the nearby Viking Fur Inc., which houses around 80,000 mink. Peter Noer, Viking Fur’s co-owner, says that escapes are a fact of life for mink farming.
“We have a solid fence all the way around us and we have traps in each barn,” says Noer. “If a mink escapes, it normally goes into these traps. But now, during pelting time, when we go in and out from the farm to the gate with the animals to be processed, it’s very hard not to have a mink crawl into a pallet. If the door goes up and it’s unattended, the mink will escape.”
Noer does his best to mitigate the situation by providing traps to any local residents who may require one. However, any more comprehensive or effective solutions aren’t feasible.
“We could put in some of those traps with a big spring that breaks their necks when they go in, like a huge mouse trap,” says Noer. “But then again, what if I’m going to kill Mrs. Bishop’s cat in one of those traps? We don’t want to kill any other animals. I’m open to any kind of suggestion of things that could be done differently.”
That’s not an optimal response for Dobbie, whose intention was to raise the chickens free range, in keeping with GrowDat’s principles.
“I don’t blame Viking Fur,” says Dobbie. “I think Peter, honestly, he’s a good corporate citizen. He’s a good person and he knows the problems and he’s probably doing his best. But that doesn’t help people like me. I don’t know if there’s a solution. ‘Don’t try to raise chickens three kilometers from a mink farm’ might be the take away.”
- Matt Jones