Massively sad news: a rat has taken two of our goslings and both were females, meaning we are now down to just two females in our main brood, plus of course Gloria!!! We realized we were one short yesterday morning but we had no idea where she had gone. Then this morning we found the remains of a second when we opened up their stall and sadly then found the remains of the first one over three quarters eaten and buried behind a dividing wall.
The goslings are as big as our smaller chickens. We had no idea that they would be so susceptible to rats, especially as we never have a problem with our chicks and ducklings! We wonder whether they are easy pickings due to a lack of aggression from their parents or the fact, despite being big, the goslings themselves are quite ‘cumbersome’. The aggression bit is a funny one: the adults will hiss and peck at us and at the ducks, but they run away from the turkeys! At night the goslings are also not actually underneath the adults (almost too big now) and so that must make them more vulnerable as well.
This evening we moved adults and youngsters back into the main poultry stable as whilst the stable doors aren’t rat proof, the floor is concrete and the walls all block work and so the rats cannot nest in there. Threre is also a vague hope that as all the others birds are in there, they may see off any rats that come in, especially the turkeys!!
We now are planning to put paving slabs down in their stall and fix a line of roofing tiles along the wooden dividing wall... in the meantime, fingers crossed for the remaining nine!!!