Chickens/Rats - warning

alsxx

alsxx

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My mum keeps Chickens and Ducks, has done for years. Unfortunately where there is poultry, tends to come rats - and again as she has done for years she has a few traps positioned around the property with poison. Never had a problem and generally kept the rats down.

Sadly a while ago, one of her new pullets (she bought 4 stunning birds imported from franch, all vaccinated etc etc for a few ££!!) mysteriously died. She took it to her vet friend who sent it up to some dep of agriculture place for a pm as bird was fine one day and dropped dead the next with no symptoms, frustrating when you have paid a lot of money for something that is fully vaccinated - anyway pm still not been done, bird is obviously in the deep freeze somewhere
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This was a few months back, and no probs since, however this morning one of the other birds that she bought was really off colour - had fluid in its lungs and promptly died - was fine last night. Younger brother (8 years so not too reliable) has now said that he saw Marg (chicken that died this morning) running round with a dead rat in her beak on wednesday - so we are now all thinking that its likely that she had been poisoned by the dead rat.

So i guess just a warning really to all those who keep chickens - and if anyone has any suggestions on how to kill the little critters without poison, send them my way!!
 
We have the "rat hounds" too! They are very good. We were worried about some chicks the other day that looked as if they could have been eating some poison that was in a box (ours are quite free range), but they seem OK at the moment. Thanks for the warning though.
 
Yup, big problem poisoning rats etc - it would seem odd though that the chickens were poisoned by eating dead rats... I've not heard of that one before. Is there any way that the chickens could have got to the posion itself? I know we have problems with the cats - having a farm, with sheep, cows, chickens etc we have rats running around. My OH has littlte tunnel feeders so that the other animals cannot eat the bait, but the cats will catch the rats and eat them. As of yet, this has had no ill effect on the cats, but there is not an awful lot you can do to stop the cats catching them.
 
I will tell her to try that. The frustrating thing is the poison is no where the birdies can possibly get to - it must be when the darn things crawl off to die and leave their dead bodies where the chicks can get them
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She phoned vet and he said that the poison would kill chickens and he thought it was likely that they had somehow ingested it from a dead rat if she had been seen with one. But I find it so strange that they would try and eat a dead rat - it only seems to be these birds that she got that are interested in them!!

I think she has tunnel feeders too...
 
Combination of air rifle and our yard cat who is an excellent ratter - to be fair we have not seen one since we had the chooks but I'm sure we soon will

Edit to say - we don;t use the air rifle at the same time the cat is after them
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A decent Patterdale Terrier (though might preffer badgers or foxes to rats) or a Jack Russel should easily resolve this problem... Vile things I HATE HATE HATE wild rats!
 
Sadly one cat is 19 and the other 16 and now absolutely useless hunters!! Mother would never have the guts to take shots at them, she is too much of a wuss (although i can image little bro would find it fun
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) although she did mention she may need to buy a JRT
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buy a JRT!! or get hold of some "Eradirat" it is a plant based pellet which kills the rats by dehydrating them from inside out.....it is completley safe if other animals were to eat it or if they ate and rats which had ingested it, it's recommended by the barn owl trust, secondary poisioning has been long recognised as a factor in the decline of the barn owl population.
TBH i have seen chickens eat mice but not rats.....have the chooks shown any other symptoms at all?? did you PM the bird which died this morning? - i would expect to see internal bleeding following a dose of rat poison rather than just fluid on the lungs.....that to me (i don't claim to be a vet or anything, but have pm'd a fair few chuckens!!
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) sounds like it could be something respiritory, mycoplasma infections are common in hens and can lie dormant for ages until a stress factor triggers the disease, i would give the others a multivitamin supplement and keep a close eye. good luck.
 
Our JRT's are useless at rat catching, just not interested. I am absolutely fed up of rats!!!!!!! Hate the things, need terriers that will actually work. To be fair the JRT's are 14, but have never shown any interest at all.
 
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