Feeding rats to chickens

[BrandonVercnocke]

I’m not sure if this belongs here or the pests and predators but here goes.

So....I’ve got a lot of dead rats. I feel bad just throwing them away. They look a bit big to just toss to the chickens whole but idk. Would they tear it up? Try and eat it whole? What do y’all do?

 

[ChickenCanoe]

I can't comment on rats because luckily I have yet to be afflicted.
However, when I trap raccoons, I grill them and feed them back to the chickens.
The same technique may work for you.

 

[DVK]

I’m not sure if this belongs here or the pests and predators but here goes.

So....I’ve got a lot of dead rats. I feel bad just throwing them away. They look a bit big to just toss to the chickens whole but idk. Would they tear it up? Try and eat it whole? What do y’all do?

better to throw them away, rats carry alot of diseases and your chickens could catch salmonella, but at the same time chickens do eat mices whole if they catch them. its up to your own risk

 

[CatWhisperer]

I can't comment on rats because luckily I have yet to be afflicted.
However, when I trap raccoons, I grill them and feed them back to the chickens.
The same technique may work for you.

Mmmmmmm. Want me some grilled raccoon!

 

[gtaus]

Chickens are omnivores. They eat meat as well as plants. There are several YouTube videos of people feeding their chickens raw road kill and/or captured varmints, or putting the animal carcass in a maggot bucket and the chickens eat the maggots as they drop out. What I don't know, is if the animal was diseased would that disease be transferred to maggots and then to the chickens that ate the maggots. I can't imagine the chances would be very high that a road kill or a varmint you shot to protect your flock would be diseased. But I suppose it's possible.

At any rate, if I had to cook a varmint or road kill before feeding it to my chickens, I don't think I would waste my time on that project. A 50# bag of meat meal for the chickens cost me $13.95 at the local feed store.

I am interested in this topic and hope to learn from other comments. Good question.

 

[danceswithronin]

Well humans can't get hantavirus from livestock, so at least you wouldn't have to worry about that.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Mmmmmmm. Want me some grilled raccoon!

I would too if they were from a pristine forest like by the upper Buffalo. But these raccoons spend their lives dumpster diving.

 

[Folly's place]

I'm not willing to feed dead rats or raccoons to my birds, because of the several diseases that might be present. Leptospirosis! Rabies, etc in raccoons. Yuck! My chickens may catch and eat mice sometimes, but I'm not helping them to get more.
Mary