Minkenry Hunting Stories For Thioⁿbasabe'

[Minkenry 1,044]

Ok, so my other thread "I hunt with mink" was getting really long so I thought I'd make a new one just about my hunting stories with my mink Thioⁿbasabe' (which by the way means "Black Lightening" in the Omaha Native American language). I decided to give Thioⁿba her own thread so I can use this tread to just talk about her training and hunting experiences, and reserve the other thread for basic minkenry information, questions, and such.

 

Since this thread is all about Thioⁿbasabe', I thought I'd post some of her baby pictures, showing her development up until now.

Here is Thioⁿbasabe' just two days after I brought her home from the mink farm. She is 5 weeks 3 days old here.

Here is Thioⁿba just 5 weeks 6 days old.

Here she is 9 weeks 2 days old.

Here she is peeking out from behind her carry box (which I always put in a backpack when we are out and about) at 12 weeks 6 days old.

And here's one when she was 16 weeks old. Here she is sitting on the bank of a river next to the mouth of her carry box.

Here's Thioⁿba at 20 weeks old playing in my shirt.

And here is Thioⁿba with her first real wild game, a 736 gram rock squirrel.

Edited October 10, 2013 by Minkenry

[onthehunt 40]

Beautiful photos mate and nice to see how she develops. Similar to the life-stage photos I take of my lot always nice to look back on the memories

[telf 15]

stunning looking animal

[Minkenry 1,044]

Ok, so here's the story of Thioⁿba's first hunt on October 2. This was my now 5 month old baby mink Thioⁿbasabe's first real squirrel hunt. Up until this point we have just done caching training, and a couple of unsuccessful rat hunts. I've given her a couple squirrels to catch in artificial situations, but this was her fist time going after completely wild squirrels.

I took her to a really good spot were my mink Missy also caught her first two squirrels. It's two old barns that boarder a duck pond on one side, and a river on the other. There is a good colony of squirrels there, and the set up really gives the mink the advantage.

I released Thioⁿba under the big brown barn, and she ran around sniffing for a while, with no signs of any squirrels. After a while, I called her over with the social call, and showed her the hole under the red barn. She went down the hole for a while, then popped back up, then disappeared again. I ran around shining my light in every hole I could find under that old red barn, and I'd see my mink every now and then, but no squirrels. Then finally I shined my light in a hole near the far end of the red barn, and saw the bushy tail of a rock squirrel!

I ran over to the other side of the red barn just in time to see a smaller sized squirrel shoot out from under the red barn, and then run into a hole under the brown barn. I hadn't seen my mink in a while, and I assumed she was still under the red barn where that squirrel came running from. I looked under the brown barn to see if I could see the squirrel hiding under it, but I saw nothing. Then all of a sudden I heard some leaves rustling, and I stood up to see my mink chasing two squirrels around the brown barn I was looking under. One went under the brown barn with Thioⁿba right on its tail, and the other one ran up a big cottonwood tree that was right next to the barn.

The squirrel and mink disappeared for a while, and I walked around so I was standing in between the two barns. I was looking at the squirrel hiding high in the cottonwood tree, when all of a sudden I hear a commotion under the brown barn, and out pops the squirrel, running away from the tree and brown barn, towards the red barn. In a flash Thioⁿba pops out of the same hole and grabs the squirrel before it can even get off the porch. They squabbled for a quick moment, then the squirrel escapes and runs off the porch in the opposite direction, around the tree, then back under the brown barn, with my mink in hot pursuit.

<a href="http://s907.photobucket.com/user/zhi06zhi/media/Snapshot310-3-201311-05AM_zpscde622e0.png.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://i907.photobucket.com/albums/ac279/zhi06zhi/Snapshot310-3-201311-05AM_zpscde622e0.png" border="0" alt=" photo Snapshot310-3-201311-05AM_zpscde622e0.png"/></a>

Just seconds after they disappear under the barn I hear the squirrel making a loud growling sound they make when a mink catches them. I quickly try to see if I can reach them, so I can help her with the squirrel, but they are too far under the barn for me to reach. So I lift up some boards that we had loosened then placed back like normal last year when Missy killed a squirrel but wouldn't cache it.

I see my mink has the squirrel by the back of it's head, but the squirrel somehow escaped again. I kept shining my light around under the barn, trying to figure out what was going on, and I realized that the mink and squirrel must have both left. I walk over to the red barn to see if I can see them over there, and I see my mink laying in the duck pond getting a drink, and trying to cool off. I then look down at my feet and to my surprise there is the now mostly dead squirrel sitting at my feet! I finish the poor squirrel off (she was mostly dead, but still breathing) and I go pick up the carry box, and call Thioⁿba over. She licked the blood oozing from the wounds she had inflicted on the back of its head, then grabbed it by the back of the neck and dragged it into her box so I would reward her with her dinner.

Poor Thioⁿba was pretty warn out after all that running around, and after her meal she promptly fell asleep in her box.

[Minkenry 1,044]

On October 9th, I took Thioⁿba on her first ever muskrat hunt. She worked BEAUTIFULLY! She worked with a PERFECT combination of independently searching for game with her nose, and yet still watching me for clues to see if I had found game. She traveled out ahead of me, searching for game on her own, but also kept an eye out for me to make sure we weren't separated. I was absolutely AMAZED at how well she both searched for game, yet also tried to make sure we were together.

At one point she disappeared into some muskrat tunnels through some thick grass along the bank of the canal. I didn't know where she went, as the grass was so thick she could have been 3 feet away, or 300 feet up stream and I wouldn't have known. After not seeing her for a while, I started to walk down stream looking for her. I didn't want to distract her from hunting, so I didn't call her, I just kept looking for her. All of a sudden I looked back where I had seen her last, and noticed that she had swam out into the water and was looking for me. She swam right to me, climbed up under my coat to dry off, then went back to hunting.

I was really happy to see that she was both independently hunting, and trying to keep from loosing track of me. While I was standing in the water near her, she had kept hunting in the thick grass, I'm sure peering out of the grass when I couldn't see her, and making sure I was still close. But when I left her to try to "find her", she followed me. It's really helpful hunting with a mink that actually CARES if she get's lost lol.

Another fun thing I noticed Thioⁿba doing, was she not only searched for holes on her own, but if she saw me paying too much attention to a hole, she would come and check it out to see if I had found anything. I love that she obviously sees me as a hunting partner, not just some guy that watches her hunt!

Unfortunately we didn't have luck finding any muskrat, but to be honest we didn't hunt all that long, as my plan was for this to be more of a scouting trip and training session rather than an actual hunt.

After a good little hunt, I put Thioⁿba's harness on and tied her up while I set up a harnessed starter rat up in one of the empty muskrat dens. Then I went and took her harness off, letting her run back to the canal. She disappeared in the long grass along the edge of canal, and I picked up her carry box and quickly ran ahead of her to where the rat was hidden. When I got to the hole where I had released the rat on a string, I gave the call "here here here" which means there is something in this hole. I hear the grass rustle as Thioⁿba ran towards me, and then just as she got close to me, the grass fell silent. Then, out of nowhere, the string tied to the rat started to zip down into the hole.

I thought to myself, "Crap, she's gone in the hole from a different entrance and found the rat!" I didn't know what to do, as I wasn't sure if she was pulling the rat deeper into a nest chamber, or pulling it out of the same hole she entered the burrow system from. Then I heard some thrashing around in the grass, and knew that she had pulled the rat all the way out of the hole and into the grass.

I let the end of the string go, and started thumping on her box, trying to call her to the box. Instead of coming towards me, I heard her moving through the grass away from me back up stream. I wondered, "where is she going with that rat?" Then it hit me! The last place she saw the box was by where I had tied her up! She was already in the deep grass when I picked up the box!!!

I rushed back and picked up the box, then ran along the top of the bank trying to get ahead of Thioⁿba so I could put the box where she saw it last. As I was nearing the spot, I saw her look out of the grass to the empty spot where the box should have been. She then turned back around and was running back towards the hole she had found the rat in.

I don't know what she was planning to do at that point, and I will never know. I jumped off the bank down into the long grass and put her box on the same trail she was traveling on, and started tapping on the box while calling her. Thioⁿba stopped in mid stride and looked over her shoulder. She saw me and the box, and came running back and cached her rat!!!!!!!!!

I was so excited I couldn't stand it!!!!!!!!!!! After everything had gone so terribly wrong, she STILL cached her rat like she was supposed to! I was just ECSTATIC!!! Man I love my cute little mink! I sure hope we have many years of hunting together ahead of us!

Edited October 10, 2013 by Minkenry

[Minkenry 1,044]

This morning we had a fun little hunt. Yesterday morning was more of a scouting trip than a hunting trip. This morning I took Thioⁿba to a park where I KNEW there would be plenty of game. This park has a stream that flows through it that is always full of muskrats. When the weather is nice, people come an throw bread to the ducks which also attracts lots of brown rats during the spring, summer and fall months.

I turned Thioⁿba loose and she went to work. We spent the first hour searching for, but not finding any rats. Then, Thioⁿba found a big albino tout hiding under the bank in the entrance of a muskrat den. We had seen this trout several times earlier in the year when we were hunting the park with my adult mink Missy, but none of our mink had ever seen it yet. She chased that around for a while, and got really close to catching it. Eventually the albino trout took off, and we went back to hunting rats.

Thioⁿba climbed up onto the bank and was sniffing around in the grass, and then all of a sudden she DIVED into a rat hole. The hole must have gotten too tight for her about 6" in, because she didn't go all the way in the hole at first, she just frantically squirmed around like she was ether trying to dig or squeeze into the hole.

I thought for a second she might have caught something, but she popped her head up for a moment and there was no rat in her mouth. Then she went back on working her way into the burrow, and disappeared. About the same time she disappeared down the hole, two good sized rats popped out the back entrance. One ran up stream along the bank, and the other dived under the water and was headed for a hole system on the opposite side of the bank.

I tried to grab it, and felt it's tail and foot with my hand, but just missed it as it reached the far bank of the stream and dived into another hole. When Thioⁿba came out of the hole system she was in, I took her over to where I saw the rat disappear. Unfortunately she couldn't fit, and wasn't all that interested in digging in. I was wishing I brought my little shovel, but I though "Oh well, there's plenty more rats we can find."

Thioⁿba swam back to the other side of the stream again, and picked up on the other rat's trail that had run upstream. She followed its trail until it got to a hole, then disappeared down the hole after it. Just as she went in, the rat popped out a back entrance, and dived under water heading for the opposite bank.

I grabbed the rat by the tail and yelled "here here here". Thioⁿba came flying out of the hole, and was swimming right for me. I threw the rat back to the same side of the bank where it came from, and Thioⁿba and the rat both disappeared down the hole again. Then the rat popped out of the back entrance for the second time, but dived under the water before Thioⁿba could see him.

I was disappointed she didn't look under the water because the rat was RIGHT THERE, but instead she ran down the bank looking for the rat on the land instead of the water. I said "Here, here here!!!" and pointed at the water, but she just surface swam to me, not looking under the water, so she didn't see the rat swimming just a few feet away from her.

So I reached under the water and caught the rat myself for the second time, and swung it by the tail back into the mouth of the same hole. Thioⁿba ALMOST got it, but it lost her again with the same trick. It dived in the hole, then came back out, and dived under water were she couldn't see or smell it.

However, this time the water was so murky from me running around that I couldn't see the rat when it swam past me. I knew it was under the water, but I didn't know where until just as it got to the opposite shore.

I grabbed at the rat, but it was too late. It disappeared down a hole in a rotten stump. I called, "Here here here!!!" and patted the stump with my hand. Thioⁿba quickly swam across the stream and disappeared down into the stump. FINALLY I heard the sweet sound of the squeaking of a captured rat! She killed it, then came out of the hole to look around. I thought, "Crap did it get away AGAIN?!?!?" I tapped on the box which I was actually holding at the time, and put the mouth of the box on the edge of the stump as I stood in the water. Thioⁿba sniffed her box and when back down the hole. I knew by her body language that she had killed the rat, and sure enough, she dragged out a 250 gram male brown rat and put it in her box.

It was quite the fun little hunt, and I think Thioⁿba learned a lot from it. I think the next day I don't have time to take her hunting, I'm going to work with her on chasing a rat under water. She knows that fish swim under water, and does quite good at chasing them, but she hasn't learned yet that rats will dive under water too. When she learns their little under water escape trick, I expect to see some pretty exciting underwater chases!

Edited October 10, 2013 by Minkenry

[Tag1 12]

Amazing! I think I do well because my ferrets are very tame! Honest enough with myself to know I could never handle a mink

[Huan72 687]

Minkenry, I think what you do with your mink is amazing. Just a few questions, I suddenly had a thought that your bond with your mink is like others would have with their dogs, rather than the type of bond that they would have with their ferrets and do you think that your strong bond with your mink is the key to your hunting success. For how long do you handle the Mink each day and how do you view your bond with your mink. I am thinking that mink and ferrets are cousins and have a very similar physiology and it may well be possible to do similar things with ferrets, if raised the same way. I admire mustelids for being what they are, pound for pound some of the most capable animals on the planet. Anyway keep posting, really interesting stuff

[Minkenry 1,044]

Minkenry, I think what you do with your mink is amazing. Just a few questions, I suddenly had a thought that your bond with your mink is like others would have with their dogs, rather than the type of bond that they would have with their ferrets and do you think that your strong bond with your mink is the key to your hunting success. For how long do you handle the Mink each day and how do you view your bond with your mink. I am thinking that mink and ferrets are cousins and have a very similar physiology and it may well be possible to do similar things with ferrets, if raised the same way. I admire mustelids for being what they are, pound for pound some of the most capable animals on the planet. Anyway keep posting, really interesting stuff

 

Yes my bond with a bottle raised mink is more like a dog than most people and their ferret, or a falconer and their bird, however the mink I get as adults don't have near as strong a bond with me. Some mink I tame as adults seem to like my company, and other mink make it clear that they just put up with me. The best hunting mink I've had, actually had the weakest bond with me when compared to all my other mink. So I don't think the bond is necessary to hunt with a mink, though it does make hunting and working with a mink much more pleasant.

 

If I want a mink to imprint on me, I take a baby from its mom when it is between 32-34 days old. You can go as old as 36 days old and have it work, but I prefer a baby between 32 and 34 days old. That way the baby think's I'm it's mom, but I don't take it too young while it's still fragile and heavily depending on it's mother's milk. I feed the baby kitten replacement milk out of a bottle and chopped meat until it's old enough to eat just meat, which is at about 40-42 days old. During this time I spend as much time as possible with the baby mink, holding it while it sleeps whenever possible. Then when it's old enough to start walking around (around 7 weeks old), I take it on little walks that progress in length as the mink gets older. When the mink hits 8 weeks old I start training it to cache.

 

When the mink get's old enough to be fed just twice a day, I work my mink twice a day along with it's feeding schedule. I feed my mink once in the morning and once at night, which gives me two training sessions a day. While raising a baby mink, I spend anywhere from a half an hour, to two hours per training session, with an hour and a half being the average. So, that would total up to between 1 and 4 hours a day, depending on how much time I have that particular day. I do that every day but Sunday, from the time the mink is 8 weeks old, up until I consider the mink "trained" which is at about 5 months old.

[Minkenry 1,044]

So I took Thioⁿba hunting again tonight. This time I took her to my neighbor's house where he has a chicken coop. I was a little worried Thioⁿba might have forgotten her training on chickens, but much to my pleasant surprise she remembered perfectly. She practically ran through the legs of roosting chickens as she searched for rats, TOTALLY ignoring the birds! Literally SECONDS after releasing her, she nailed a rat under a chicken's nest box. The rat somehow escaped and ran straight up the trunk of a large old tree that was in the middle of the chicken coop. Thioⁿba followed it right up the tree, quickly out climbing the rat, and grabbed it by the tail right in front of my face, and about eye level. She then took the rat to the ground and gave it a kill bite in it's head. She cached it in her box, and was all excited and wanted to go for a second rat, but I fed her up instead. I think I might try for a double or triple tomorrow, but we'll have to see. I don't want to ruin all the caching training I've been doing by letting her take doubles and triples too soon. I'd rather only catch one rat per hunt and have her cache perfectly, then to catch 10 rats per hunt and have her cache inconsistently.

[onthehunt 40]

 

So I took Thioⁿba hunting again tonight. This time I took her to my neighbor's house where he has a chicken coop. I was a little worried Thioⁿba might have forgotten her training on chickens, but much to my pleasant surprise she remembered perfectly. She practically ran through the legs of roosting chickens as she searched for rats, TOTALLY ignoring the birds! Literally SECONDS after releasing her, she nailed a rat under a chicken's nest box. The rat somehow escaped and ran straight up the trunk of a large old tree that was in the middle of the chicken coop. Thioⁿba followed it right up the tree, quickly out climbing the rat, and grabbed it by the tail right in front of my face, and about eye level. She then took the rat to the ground and gave it a kill bite in it's head. She cached it in her box, and was all excited and wanted to go for a second rat, but I fed her up instead. I think I might try for a double or triple tomorrow, but we'll have to see. I don't want to ruin all the caching training I've been doing by letting her take doubles and triples too soon. I'd rather only catch one rat per hunt and have her cache perfectly, then to catch 10 rats per hunt and have her cache inconsistently.

 

Have you ever kept any male mink?

[Minkenry 1,044]

Have you ever kept any male mink?

 

 

Yes, but not very many. I've only ever hunted with 3, two were my own, and one was a friends. I did have one other male, but he was just a pet, and I never hunted with him. Most of my experience has been with females. They can fit down much smaller holes, which gives you a larger range of prey you can go after. Since I work with mainly ranch mink, the males are usually 1500 grams and up, which makes them just too big to go down most prey animal's holes. They could be good on rabbit, but I have to travel quite a ways for rabbits, making them a rather inconvenient prey. I'm sure they're great on muskrats, but that leaves me with only one prey option to hunt with on a regular basis. A good female can take muskrat, brown rats, and rock squirrel. They are big enough to handle a muskrat, yet small enough to fit down a brown rat hole. I would really love to try to get my hands on a really small wild male! I've read they average from 1000-1400 grams, with really small males getting down in the 800-900 gram range. A 850 gram male mink sounds awesome. A male that small should be able to fit down most brown rat holes, and would have the added strength and courage of a male. Gram for gram male mink are ALWAYS more powerful than a female. Their entire bodies are stronger, but their neck and jaw power seems to be the on thing that really stands out. To have a male mink as small as my ranch females (which are usually 800-900 grams) but with the added strength and courage of a male would be really fun!

[Minkenry 1,044]

Here's a video from this morning's rat hunt. We went back to the same chicken coop as last night, and caught a rat even easier than we did last night. This video really isn't all that exciting, but the reason I'm posting it is to show you guys how good my little mink is doing at totally ignoring chickens as she hunts for rats. I am still shocked and amazed that I was able to get her to ignore a much more visible, and easy to catch prey (the squawking chickens), and go searching for the hidden rats instead. It sure feels good to watch the fruits of your labors! You guys got to watch this!

 

 

Edited October 11, 2013 by Minkenry

[Geordieboy 23]

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!!

[skycat 6,173]

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!