Botulism I'm dreading

[sawilliams]

Soooo thankful for everyone's thoughts and leads to a solution!

Their water container is cleaned thoroughly and routinely, food is good and dry.

I see compost and I think people who do wood boxes with scraps and etc in it to get good planting soil. We don't have anything like that. The dirt in the runs can get pretty moist depending on the weather but it also dries out enough to where they can get a good dust bath. I keep everyone wormed twice a year, I hope that's enough? I inspect poop it's gross but I think it's important to pay attention to it. As far as macroscopic worms I've seen none. Combs are good color if mature, legs, beak eyes and inside of mouth look good/normal. I check them for mites and lice (worse than chicken poop in my opinion) and I will see some and I give them a good dust routinely one by one when they are roosting. I also dust the floor after cleaning out old straw and then dust and flip the new straw. Lastly none of the chickens figured out where the garden is... beyond the land of shepherds lol

As far as the runs- the only chickens to go digging to china are the ameraucanas. The rat was a good 4 or more inches down and I guess she heard the bugs doing their job on the remains? I feel it's certainly possible for there to be some more poison under the dirt somewhere. I had some ground collapse under me on day in a run so I know there's tunnels. I have never forked over the run
>.<
What if I bring up hidden rat poison while doing this? Like if it's no longer bright green and visible?

But let's say it's all broken down and gone (I hope to call the 800# and see if someone can inform me) and I turn over the soil- how deep do I need to go? And do I need to keep the chickens out of it for a specific amount of time? Also should I just skip it all and shovel out X inches and replace with good dirt? I mean that's a ton of work for me but I enjoy and want to keep my girls happy, ALIVE and just improving the coop. Still I would rather not do anything unnecessary.

As far as symptoms: the hens that are laying eggs boss my 3 18weekers. No food for you until the adults are done eating is the attitude. Heck maybe they are starving!? But they have been together for well over a month now. I haven't noticed the hens acting funny. My youngins will perch most of the day unless it's that groups turn to free range. And I do see them digging around in the coop and run some when not free. It's never more than one chicken displaying symptoms but I would say they act stunned? Wings are not dropped but the chicken is acts drunk. I haven't noticed anything other than that and then the next day close to perfectly normal if not completely normal but it's usually free range day by then...

Maybe the boss hens gave a good peck? I don't know but I want to do something about the run for sure just because of the rat business. I would enjoy destroying the tunnels regardless and not breaking my ankle!

So drunk is also a good describtion for dehydrated. If the hens are keeping the younger ones away from food they are likely keeping then from water too. Dehydration will set in much faster then a lack of food, but in its most mild form they appear weak and drunk like but will recover quickly with access to water.
I agree with above you need to try to set up some sort of safe haven for the younger chickens with thier own food and water.