Wanted Please - Harrogate / York / Leeds area

[Sydenham chick]

A very sad story.

 

Had our POL chickens since 6th feb, our first ever chickens. All four in a eglu classic with a 4m run. All was going well until Thursday this week when one was discovered missing one foot. We took her to the vet and she was euthanised. There was a gash further up her thigh as well as the foot injury. It was strange as they had been confined to the run the day before so no predator could have got them, except maybe a rat? Having asked around the view was a) a rat shouldn't have been able to get in and b) it's unlikely a chicken would have stayed still long enough to allow her whole foot to be eaten. The eglu had quite a lot of blood and feathers, but no foot.

 

We duly cleaned out the house and disinfected it, it was all very worrying as we have had to leave them for the first time to come away for easter with grandparents. A neighbour has been looking after them for us. We got a phone call today, saying another chicken had suffered the same fate. This cannot be a coincidence. Again, no foot to be seen.

 

Does anyone have any ideas? The two that are left are both heritage skylines - the other two were different breeds- and one of them has not come into lay. My gut feeling is that the perpetrator is the one who hasn't come into lay yet- and must be well overdue at nearly 26 weeks. We are away until Tuesday- and we only have one chicken house so have asked our neighbour to separate them by shutting the layer into the eglu and swapping them every 24hours until we get home. We don't know what else to do and cannot find very much information online about the problem.

 

We would be very grateful for any ideas. Many thanks

[Egluntyne]

Sounds more like a mink, stoat or weasel attack.

[Sydenham chick]

Really? In South London? Are there any other signs of these evil creatures I should be looking for?

[clucker1]

I saw a mink in our local pond in Dorking, Surrey a few years ago....it was killing the ducks. Reported it at the time to the Council who said they would send the pest control out to sort the situation.

[Tweety]

I agree with Egluntyne, and would add rats to the list.

 

I lost some hens to an unknown predator a couple of years ago. They were in a fox proof run, no signs that anything fox-sized had got into the run, so I got pest control in. They put down traps and poison and we have had no problems since.

[Redwing]

It sounds like something is grabbing the hens through the run bars, poo tray gap or nest box hole. feet are a common thing to be grabbed and pulled and when the rest of the hen wont come through the gap the foot is ripped off

 

If the hens were in the run you could try adding some small holed mesh around the bottom 6 inches if they were in the coop block up the poo tray gap and put mesh under the Eglu iteself or block the nest box hole with something

[SueChick]

Hi - so sorry to hear of your recent nasty events.

 

We have had a close call recently regarding a rat actually gnawing around the hole in the egg box and nearly getting one of our ladies.

 

There was this huge commotion in the middle of the night and all 3 ladies were screaming and burst their way out of the door of the Eglu into the run. We couldn't see anything at the time and couldn't understand it. Then when we're doing cn extremely deep clean due a suspicion of red mite (it's all happening to us this year!) we turned the Eglu over and there were gnaw marks over the bottom and around the egg box hole.

 

We have now got a metal grill to go over the hole to still allow drainage but prevent the horrible rats!

 

When we lifted the slabs up that the Eglu was standing on (again checking for possible mite infestations), we had a horrible shock! Out popped a rat and ran across the garden with 3 chickens and 2 cats in hot pursuit! It had made tunnels under the slabs without us even knowing it was there!

 

Hopefully this helps you out - maybe you have somewhere a rat could be hiding?