Neighbor hates my chickens- will she do them harm?

[Cutepal]

Gah I guess I was pretty bad .__.

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

This week was wonderful and horrible. DH’s favorite chicken “Bonus” got sick. I found her standing like a penguin and she was having trouble breathing. I consulted Backyard Chickens and found out what was wrong. Her belly was full of fluid. So I drained some with a needle and she perked up and was breathing a little better. Then the traveling chicken vet paid a visit the next day. She drained 2 cups of fluid from Bonus’s belly! Poor girl. The problem we think is an egg floating around in her abdomen. You can feel it! The vet said sometimes the body learns to deal with the egg and stops reacting. Then sometimes it doesn’t and the only way to possibly fix them is surgery. So we gave Bonus some Rimadyl for a week (who knew it was good for chickens too!) and kept her in the house. She is doing great. Amazing and wonderful so far! She chases the cat, which is quite funny and she also tries to chase the puppy. Mimi thinks that is REALLY funny and wants to play. Then Bonus yells for me in a very distinctive tone that says, “Hey get this puppy, she’s gonna eat me!” Then the puppy is in trouble when really it was Bonus that started it to begin with! I have ordered a couple chicken diapers. Looks like we have a house chicken for a bit. It was -4 degrees this AM. Too cold for her to go back outside.

Then there was the horrible. Up until last night the battle of the rats was going well. We were keeping them out or entombing them. I had tracks outside –but nothing inside except a little mouse. My dream that I had entombed them all was of course, as many of you knew, highly unlikely. I knew there were still some outside, lurking. Then last night the rats managed to reopen a tunnel that we had blocked from the outside. Unfortunately it led to an opening inside that DH missed. He feels very bad. He tried so hard to fill up every crevice, but this hole was tucked up in a corner and he missed it. And they got in and killed Chrissy. It was a battle. She likes to roost up high near the window away from the other chickens. The hole was right behind where she snuggles in. The rats must have been starving and grabbed the first thing they found-her. It was awful. It looked like they had bitten her comb and then tried to bite her head. There was blood splattered on the wall in such a way that I think she was shaking her head and trying to fight them off. My poor baby. She was still alive when I found her, but she died just a moment later. I think I interrupted the carnage. So I quickly got a chair to stand on and a flashlight and found the hole. DH pushed small pieces of hardware cloth inside the hole and emptied an entire can of spray foam down into it. When I took the dogs outside a minute ago I heard squeaking on the outside of the coop. They must have been trying to get back in and found a dead end!


Bonus lives..... something to be happy about.

 

[EggresiveAli]

Sorry for your loss!

Good to hear about bonus though...

 

[missbecky]

That's horrible! Your poor chickies.

It's just like watching a horror movie hearing about these vicious chicken killer rats.

 

[Cluckies]

That is horrifying. so sorry for your loss. can't even imagine. I think i'd have built a new coop by now or built a coop inside of the cement one. terrible.

 

[aart]

OhCrap...I'm so sorry!!

 

[TheSitcomGirls]

I'm so distressed! It happened again only this time the rats chose the wrong chicken. Counselor Troi is small but she is feisty and near the top of the pecking order. Plus she sleeps next to Spock. The rats were unable to kill her. She is in the bathroom right now, warming up. She did lose some blood, but not as much as poor Chrissy. I was worried she might have been going into shock. She was eating a little but just looked so tired in the coop. She was sitting on the floor. I didn’t want the rats to come back and try again!

So I brought her in the house and cleaned the blood off of her the best I could. I am leaving her in the house at least today. She is not a house chicken candidate like Bonus so I really have to get her back outside as soon as possible. She does not care for being confined AT ALL. I am surprised I was even able to touch her. For her to actually let me pick her up is bad. Normally you can’t get within a foot of her. They attacked her head. I believe the blood came from the rats pulling out her feathers! There were no bite marks on her head at all and her comb is intact.

And at least we figured out where they are getting in again. We have so much snow now that the banks are getting close to the roof! They have chewed their way into the eves again, near where the other rats were entombed. DH saw daylight in one of the eves. He filled it with sprayfoam. When I went outside I could hear something chewing sprayfoam! So today while I am here getting the car serviced he is at home covering up the remainder of the eve spaces with hardware cloth…if he runs out of hardware cloth then he will use wood and sprayfoam. Then when I get back I’m going to get the tractor and see if I can move the snow bank in the driveway away from the coop. And my chicken vet knows an excellent exterminator and I'm going to call him. We need help, this can't go on!

This snow is so difficult to deal with. I suppose for people who are used to 3 plus feet of snow in a winter it’s not a big deal. But I am not! The problem is that it is so cold that the snow doesn’t melt, doesn’t compact and doesn’t form a crust you can walk on-it just keeps accumulating and blowing all over the place. When I got up this morning the real temperature was -8 degrees and the wind chill was -25. This just not normal! The little goats are locked up. I will let them out for a bit when I get home, but it is just too cold! The chicken coop despite the temps only got down to 18 degrees last night. One of the benefits of a stone building….warm in the winter, cool in the summer….but we need to stop these awful rats!

 

[HumbleHen207]

I know how you feel about snow! We have almost four feet here in Maine and the cold shows no sign of leaving anytime soon! Rats are incredibly intelligent, they are known to enter buildings through pipes leading through toilets even... I would try and take a more aggressive approach to the beasties, maybe setting out poison, or live trapping them and then dispatching them (this is what i do). I know poison is often dangerous because of pets. Keeping them out will be an ongoing battle because they are very persistent.

 

[ChristieB]

Can I ask why you haven't put out poison or traps yet? Seems odd to just keep them trapped in the coop, any females in there will now be pregnant they will be accustomed to the spray repellant and will have found a source of food. Rats are very resourceful and won't give up.

 

[seminolewind]

Hi. The only way to get rid of rats is to cover all food at night. All of it. No crumbles left on the ground. Then buy a bait station or two and keep it stocked with Tom Cat blocks. No dead rats anywhere. No rats anywhere. There's nothing to eat but poison!!!!