Embarrassed and sadened. What actually happened?

[BlindLemonChicken]

I have had terrible rat problems in the past but they have never gone after my full grown hens. I have however seen chickens peck one another to death when stressed. Rats will dig tunnels under anything they can and if you're lucky (haha) they will build a nest. You should be able to tell if you have a problem if you find their greasy little trails. But I don't see the rats killing a full grown bird. More likely the others pecked her to death then the rats ate half of her. Or the others ate her. Definitely check for rats though.

 

[NatJ]

I sitll feel like they cannibalized, but I could be wrong.

You might be right, but it's hard to tell by now.

I know chickens will peck & eat a chicken that is injured or dead.

I'm pretty sure your chickens would have eaten at least some of the dead one.

I have no idea if they killed her, or if she starved to death (unlikely in 4 days), or if she died of thirst (possible in 4 days, depending on which day they upset their water.)

A dead chicken has a certain amount of moisture in it, which would also be attractive to the chickens after they upset their water and then got thirsty.

 

[wayb_BYC]

Odds are the 3-4 days of no food/water contributed to the event and loss of your chicken. You'll probably never know what happened exactly or on what timeline, but I wanted to tell you this---don't be harder on yourself than you already have been.

You didn't do it on purpose.

You didn't intentionally choose to ignore the needs of your animals.

You feel remorse and guilt, which is good--because it means you're human and it will help you to never make a similar error again.

As long as you do indeed learn from this experience, there's no reason to continue to beat yourself up over it. It's a sad and traumatic thing, yes--but this was a hard lesson to learn about how your animals depend on your attention and care--and it sounds like you've well learned the lesson.

None of us are without mistakes--just some of us end up getting lucky when those mistakes happen, and some of us not so lucky. Be gentle with yourself.