Determined to catch the culprit responsible for killing two of his ducks plus a chicken, Mr Koch was taken aback when, instead of the wild cat or fox he suspected of the attacks, it turned out to be a furry brown creature with white spots and a long tail waiting inside the cage.

"I walked down and said `Well it's not a cat. I don't know what it is, it looks like a Tasmanian Devil, but it's not big enough for a devil'," he said.

Keen to find out exactly what the creature was, Mr Koch phoned his father who told him it would be a quoll, one of Australia's native marsupials.

Department of Sustainability and Environment wildlife officer Shaun Burke visited Mr Koch's property and confirmed that, indeed, it was a rare spotted tail quoll, also known as a tiger quoll.

Remarkably, it was also the first sighting of the species in north-central Victoria for more than 30 years.

Mr Burke said while the quolls are more common to New South Wales and Queensland, they are critically endangered in Victoria, in direct competition with foxes and wild cats for food.

The last quoll was sighted at Lockwood, in 1972.

"They're rare all right. It's certainly a good finding," Mr Burke said.

While the species generally live in hollow logs in the ground, their agility means they can climb up trees - and into chook sheds - very easily.

Mr Burke said the quoll, who was probably about three years old, would eat anything from rats and native mice to dead carcasses if there was no other food around.

Mr Koch said the unexpected catch would be released back into a nearby creek.

"We'll just go a little bit further away from the chook pen, that's all," he said.