Rat in Grain, Ok to Feed Chickens

[Lacy Duckwing]

I currently have 59 Cornish Xes who have been eating organic grain. One of their feeders needed to be refilled, so I went to my grain shed and opened up a brand new bag of organic grain that had never been opened before. I was scoping out some of the grain when I found a dead rat in the bag. The rat had a hole in its stomach. The rat was apparently sealed inside of the bag. I was wondering if the whole bag of grain is contaminated. I haven't fed any of the grain to any of my chickens.

 

[lazy gardener]

I would return that bag of feed. No way would I feed it to my chickens. As a matter of fact, I'd return all feed from that lot number.

 

[KikiLeigh02]

I would return it too. I would probably report it to the manufacturer if you didn't purchase it directly from them. I'm pretty sure I'd find a different brand of organic grain to feed too.

 

[Folly's place]

x3! YUCK! Rats are smart, and difficult to eliminate, but still, this isn't good.
Mary

 

[Flamens Farm]

I agree, return the feed to the store along with your findings and notify the grain dealer of your findings. If you leave it up to the store to report it they might not make the call. I would take pictures and if the manufacturer has a web page I would submit the picture to them also.

 

[lazy gardener]

Agreed, you need to go further up the supply chain with this than just to the store manager.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

It was brought it back to the grain dealer. The grain dealer got really upset and called Poulin Grain rate up. We had to send pictures of the rat to Poulin. Apparently Poulin Grain owns the organic grain that we buy. The grain dealer gave us a new bag.