I'm So Proud Of My Little Mink

[Minkenry 1,044]

Me showing how well trained my mink is :-) I don't mean to brag, just proud of my little mink.

 

[ruggers13 268]

Awesome pal how did you train her to do that ?

[resistance 189]

Love watching the vids so unusual

[tomburras 2,721]

Brilliant, there's some trust there feeding a mink with your bare fingers while covered in blood from her food!

[Tallyho 181]

Brilliant .

[Ideation 8,216]

Awesome mate, great watch

[Barry White 79]

Absolutely brilliant!

[delswal 3,817]

suddenly got the urge to get my self a mink ffs

[Minkenry 1,044]

Awesome pal how did you train her to do that ?

There's no quick way to answer that. Here's a little article I wrote on the subject that explains the process....

 

Chapter 10

Lure Training, and Teaching a Mink to Cache

 

Once the mink is coming instantly from a distance of over 100 feet (30 meters), and under progressively more distractions, the next step is to teach it to come to the lure. The lure is basically your insurance. You have the lure to make sure the mink will always come back when you call, regardless of the circumstance.

 

Just like I mentioned in Chapter 8, the greatest motivator for a mink is the desire to chase and kill. The desire to chase and kill can override fear, the desire to breed, and even the desire to eat. Unlike a hawk that will almost always sit and eat it's catch while totally ignoring other food options around them, a mink will almost always drop what it's eating, if the chance to make a second kill presents its self. Only when a mink has been dropped too low, and it is crazy with hunger, will it ignore the opportunity to catch more prey and just sit an eat it's catch before trying to catch something new.

 

This is why teaching a mink to come to the lure is so useful. A mink almost always wants to catch more prey, and if the mink considers the lure as prey, they will almost always come running. However, when it comes to food, most mink will only come when hungry. Only mink with a very high food drive will come to the food call when not hungry, where as most any mink will come to chase and catch the lure no matter how full they are, if you train them right.

 

Training to the lure is just as useful to people with pet mink, as it is to people who practice Minkenry. You don't need to actively hunt or fish with your mink for lure work to be useful. Working a mink on the lure is both fun, and very good exercise for your mink, regardless if you ever want to hunt with your mink. Not only that, but like I said earlier, the lure will make it so you can comfortably release your mink with out a leash on, an still have it come back when you call. You can use your lure as insurance, just in case your mink doesn't listen to the food call.

 

To make a lure, I just use a raw rabbit hide with the fur still attached, but you can use just about anything you can get your mink to chase. Some mink will chase a rabbit hide just fine without any encouragement. Here's an example of a mink who will chase a rabbit hide lure without any additional encouragement.

 

http://youtu.be/dLMynPB4mDQ

 

Not all mink will chase a lure without a little extra encouragement. Here is how you get a mink started on a lure, who is reluctant to chase a lure.

 

http://youtu.be/KuuwE9c30WY

 

I like to combine lure training with training a mink to cache. If you don't plan on ever hunting with your mink, then training a mink to cache isn't all that necessary, so you can skip the cache training, and just train your mink to chase the lure for fun. You can simply tie some meat to the lure, as a reward for catching the lure, and not worry about teaching you mink to put the lure in the box.

 

As soon as a mink catches anything, it's first thought is to take this prey to a safe place. If the mink is hungry it will take it's food to a safe place to eat. If it's not that hungry, or if prey is very plentiful, the mink will still want to take it's catch to a safe place, but instead of eating it's prey, it will hide it for later and continue hunting. This is caching, hiding food in a safe spot for later use. Caching is something a mink naturally does in the wild, and if you use it to your advantage it can be a very useful instinct. However, this same instinct can become an extreme nuisance as well, if you don't work to channel it to your advantage.

 

Mink are like this because in nature mink need to have a little food in reserve, just in case they have a bad day hunting. Unlike some animals that store lots of fat on their bodies for a rainy day, wild mink rarely have very much fat on them, and if they go more than just a couple days without food, they could possibly die. Unlike a big hawk that can crop up on a large kill, and then go a several days without food, mink have small stomachs, and a very high metabolisms. In cold weather, it doesn't matter how big a mink's meal was, they will need to eat again in 24 hours later to maintain the same body weight. In fact, when the temperature drops below 0°F (-18°C) a mink will need to eat every 12 hours or more, just to maintain their body weight.

 

Much of the mink's natural range is in northern Canada and Alaska where the temperature can drop well below -50°F(-45°C). In temperatures this cold a mink could starve to death with just one day without anything to eat. Because of this, mink have a strong instinct to cache extra food for a later day. When hunting is good, a mink will catch and cache many kills before it starts to eat. Mink will cache in any good hiding spot they can find, but they prefer to cache their food in a favorite den whenever possible. The trick is to teach a mink to only cache in their carry box. This is useful for many reasons.

 

For one, when your mink is tired and hungry and plans on eating it's catch immediately, if trained to cache in it's carry box, your mink will most likely take it's catch to it's carry box to eat, instead of deep down in some hole. That is convenient because you will not be sitting outside some hole wondering where your mink is, and what it's doing. You also won't run the risk of having the mink fall asleep deep in some hole after eating it's meal, which is VERY annoying, and a good way to loose a mink.

 

Another useful thing about having your mink cache in it's carry box, is that you will actually be able to take any extra meat home to feed to your mink later, or to even eat yourself. Here is a series of videos about how to train a mink to cache. These videos are of a baby mink, but training an adult mink to cache is done in the exact same way.

 

Here is the first step with no distractions. In this video I start with a lure instead of an animal body. You can start with ether one, but eventually you will have to move up to using a whole animal body. I recommend dark colored rats or squirrels over white rats, because a white rat's skin is very thin and can be easily torn.

 

http://youtu.be/ADc4dMLxOWk

 

This video is the next step in cache training. The mink is around distractions and other places where they could cache their prey (like under the bridge in the video. I also explain the cache training tube in this video.

 

http://youtu.be/wxC7PTwD3iQ

 

This video shows the 3rd step in cache training which is doing some bush caching. Mink have little desire to cache in bushes, and would much rather cache in a hole. However a bush is a far better caching spot than the open. So the bush caching is the next step up from doing caching training in the open. In this video I also explain bush training equipment, and how to put a harness on a live rat. It is this point in the training that live rats are introduced.

 

http://youtu.be/Yh-w6Bwngao

 

This video some details on my improved cache training tube, and details on hole caching training and equipment. It also shows the last step in cache training where the mink pulls the rat out of an actual hole.

 

http://youtu.be/p0BHvIYRYtI

 

Here's another video showing my mink pulling a rat out of a hole with a few extra pointers.

 

http://youtu.be/KY1K8JYO7K4

 

In cache training, you can start out using the lure, but you will eventually need to do some training with animal bodies. Mink are not stupid, and know the difference between a lure and an actual dead animal. It's easier to start the caching habit with the lure, then later switch to using whole dead animals just like you did the lure. After using whole animal bodies, you will then need to transfer to live animals. For some reason a mink gets so excited after killing, that they often totally forget to cache, and you'll need to do some additional training on live animals to finalize your mink's caching habit.

 

To be honest, training a mink to cache is very time consuming, and at times very frustrating. It is by no means ABSOLUTELY necessary that you teach your mink to cache if you intend to hunt. Most mink will respond to the lure just fine, even if it's eating a kill down in a burrow, and if you don't mind having your mink leave a dead animal body in it's burrow after killing it, then you don't really have to go through the hassle of training your mink to cache in it's carry box. You can just hunt until your mink makes a kill, and if the kill is down in a burrow, just call your mink back up, and ether leave it there, or dig it out. I, however, can not stand the thought of wasting good meat, and in my eyes a precious life, so for me I MUST train my mink to cache, or spend a ridiculous amount of time digging up kills.

 

One important part of training a mink to cache is not letting it open it's own kills. For some reason mink don't like to open their own kills at first. Most young mink and adult mink raised on the farm seem to be completely clueless about how to open a freshly killed animal. They seem unable to open their own prey unless driven to it by hunger. This is a great advantage to the minkener, because you can teach your mink to rely on you. I never let my mink open their own kills. Instead, I always provide chopped up whole bodied animals. That way my mink aren't as tempted to chew into a kill they make at the bottom of some deep hole. The mink knows by instinct that the dead animal is food, but if they learn to take that dead animal to their box in exchange for ground meat, then that makes life much easier for them, because they don't have to chew through the tough hide, and crunch up all the bones of their prey.

[Minkenry 1,044]

Brilliant, there's some trust there feeding a mink with your bare fingers while covered in blood from her food!

 

Oddly enough, I've found this the safest time to handle a mink bare handed. With this little mink, I've bottle raised her and she is SUPER sweet and COMPLETELY trust worthy with me. Check out this video to see what I mean...

 

 

Even with mink I tame as adults, once they get over their fear of you, and start seeing you as "the food guy" most become surprisingly trustworthy when it comes to eating meat out of your hands.

[rabbit demon 301]

Their class wee animals, fair play to you for training them to hunt for you, their very like ferrets except faster and aquatic. After seeing the vids on you tube has totally changed my opinion of them. I'd love one myself now if I had the time to train it and the space for one. Could see a few people getting into your sport. Good luck with the book.

[TOMO 24,876]

Feck me a sore the title and thought ,,,,is this a euphemism .........lol

 

Love the vids by the way

[FatBoyFerrets 2]

Genius.

[WhiteRabbit 112]

Amazing and cute

[sikastag_1 689]

Cracking mate well done but what is the reason in getting the mink to drag it all the way back to the box is it because they don't have the tame ness of a dog where you can take a kill from

It and it will keep hunting?