Trouble

Yesterday my favourite hen died - of old age and decrepitude.  She wasn't ill, just old.  She had a difficult life and overcame a lot of hen style obstacles, had lots of character and was a good and reliable layer for several years. She was nearly gone yesterday morning so my husband went out yesterday afternoon to move her body from the henhouse before the others went in and disturbed her.

Passing by the run with my new little bantams in it, he spotted that something had got in and killed them.  I'm so upset.  It wasn't a fox because there was no fox size hole and the wire sides and floor and roof were undisturbed. There was a little hole under the wire flooring beside the house so it must have been a big rat. I don't know that a rat would have killed all four of them, though, but I don't know what else it could have been. The worst thing was that I went out with my husband to pick up the bodies when I got home from work and one of them moved her leg - she wasn't quite dead but had been lying there all afternoon.  We had to help her go but the thought of her lying in pain all afternoon beside the bodies of her sisters was really upsetting.

We will be acquiring some rat traps asap!