no, that is exactly the issue. We are assuming it was not a rat because we don't see how she would have survived with her bad leg.
Daily we give her a separate food pile and she hobbles out of the coop but is not very mobile.
We wondered if it could have been a hen or rooster?
thank you all for the welcome! I appreciate every piece of advice. I will take photos. We did just get 3 barn cats 2 days ago to try to help us get this under control. We used to have a farm dog but the rat/vole problem has gotten out of hand in his absence.
The rats were originally only eating...
I am new to caring for chickens. I've been on the farm for two years but only recently became responsible for the chicken coop. Everything has gone well until recently, and when I was researching my problem I found this site.
I will have to learn a lot more about what kind of chickens we have...
For about 5 weeks rats have been eating our chickens, but only our rescue chickens.
We have been working to eradicate the rats and have not lost a chicken in 2 weeks.
Yesterday, a non rescue who has a bad leg had a puncture wound in the back of her neck.
Today the injury appears worse, and...
