I have a polecat on video earlier this year.
By the 1920's polecats were thought to be extinct in Wales (if not Britain) - until my Great Grandfather shot one in his chicken run! It seems that our valley was the last haven for them, there used to be quite a few of them on our smallholding (remote, well off the road, no residents since the late 1800's and not 'farmed' to any great extent) I remember more than once when I was training horses on the road watching a polecat run ahead of me on the lane.
That's a relief then ... so 'just' the one that was killed then ? Still sad to see it happen and after an attack it really puts the wind up the others that escape.
It's like what haoppened when the neighbour's dog broke into the hen run (for the second time) one hen dead, one played dead until I picked her up and Scraggy chick (who took some damage the first time, and still has a large bald patch of scar tissue on her breast) was nowhere to be seen, apart from a few stray feathers in the hedge. No sign of her in the woods so I told SWMBO she had probably hid in the hedge somewhere. A few hours later, I was up in the range apiary and received a text. Scraggy chick was on the lawn frantically trying to get back in to her mates!
In my opinion this is a cat.
seen it loads of times - poultry and lambs, bloody heartbreaking arriving on a field and finding dead headless labs lying around
The other two are home after a night out
Would say much more likely to be a mink or polcat/ferret then. Glad they have come back.
