certain demise????

chickenee · **Posted:** Mon Oct 10, 2011 5:58 pm

my 3 backyard chickens free range all day, we let them out around 8.30am and they put themselves to bed at night......today i came home aftter lunch to collect the eggs and found a half eaten rat in front of their pen......it was fresh and absolutely wasnt there earlier but i have put rat sack under the house and am truly worried that was the cause of the rats demise and if so does that mean certain demise for our girls?? the rats stomach was still intact but the top half of it completely gone...(am hoping the neighbours cat caught it and was chased off by the girls as usual i know one chicken definately did eat some of the rat though.

Will this be fatal and what symptoms should i look out for?

wickedwings · **Posted:** Mon Oct 10, 2011 7:40 pm

I guess it depends on what the active ingredient/s are and how much they ingested. I don't know your answer specifically but here is an interesting response concerning Warfarin which is a common ingredient, particularly in Ratsak and interestingly in some blood thinning medications for stroke victims. http://askville.amazon.com/SimilarQuest ... +harm+eggs

dannyB · **Posted:** Tue Oct 11, 2011 5:54 am

As ww eluded to , it depends on the active ingredient. If it was old style RATSAK with a warfarin base then your chickens are in no danger as they are required to consume the active ingredient over 3-4 consecutive days to be affected. RATSAK one shot is the other product and as the name suggests it can kill in a single feed. It is possible for a chicken to consume enough residual bait if it was to consume several whole dead mice but from a rat perspective its hard to say if enough would have been ingested. It will take 3-5 days before you notice anything at all and you'll need to look for weakness, pale mucous membranes, coughing up blood, blood in the faeces. You can safely administer Vitamin K tablets to each chicken in the interim (the drug blocks the use of Vitamin K in the blood clotting mechanism) to overwhelm the body with vitamin K and make sure the blood still clots. This should be continued for at least 4 weeks.

chickenee · **Posted:** Tue Oct 11, 2011 8:51 pm

thanks heaps for the information, very helpful. And it helped start a big research day for me..... as it turns out the bait is the ratsak one shot which is totally the worst for secondary poisoning, and i by the looks generally fatal, but on closer review the rats head was missing, so on the deduction that i wouldnt think the hens ate the skull and all, I think it was a feast for more than likely a cat that the girls disturbed and am hoping it was a fresh catch, but if not, maybe they didnt consume enough to be fatal. Fingers crossed and just a waiting game now for the next 5 days.......Wish us luck

Hens and Hobbits · **Posted:** Wed Oct 12, 2011 1:02 pm

and best wishes to chickenee, scarlett, & blackberry.

chickenee · **Posted:** Fri Oct 28, 2011 10:45 am

thanks everyone for their advice...happy to say FALSE ALARM!
All 3 girls are happy and healthy

Have alot of info now that i have passed onto friends so a good thing, may save other animals and wildlife to know not to use the one feed poisons.

chickenee · **Posted:** Fri Nov 18, 2011 1:08 pm

After all my stressing, and then the chickens being totally fine and healthy, we had a bloody fox sqeeze its way into the pen last thurs night and got our light sussex "chichenee", luckily i was awake and heard the commotion, so potentially saved the other 2, but poor chickenee didnt survive the attack......

So I am now on the hunt for another light sussex for my son, no other chicken will do, which at this time of year with only young chicks is very hard to find one old enough to put with the others, we really dont have room for 2 extra so it needs to be 1 around laying age to try and fit in with the other girls
Very sad she was so beautiful, and friendly, our favorite I must admit.

johs · **Posted:** Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:37 am

HI chickenee,

Sorry to hear of your loss.

I don't know where you are located but I bought some fertile light Sussex eggs off a guy up near Sunbury/Greenvale, a year or so ago. He may have some older birds to sell. The three I kept are all lovely big friendly girls.

If that's the right neighbourhood for you, PM me and I'll hunt up his details.

johs · **Posted:** Thu Nov 24, 2011 1:39 am

As I hit send I saw your location. Doh! He's a fair way from you. Maybe you fancy a road trip. :-?

wickedwings · **Posted:** Thu Nov 24, 2011 5:19 am

Ringwood to Sunbury is probably closer than Geelong to Sunbury.

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