now that you mentioned chicken, and rats were mentioned previously, I thought I would combine the two into a little tale, so too speak. When I was a lad, on the farm, grandma had Araucana and Ameraucana chickens. they lay naturally colored blue, green, brown and shades of other colors, mainly pastel in color. These chickens would sometimes just roost on the ground, and you would nudge them with your foot, they move and you grab the egg. Got it, good! Now, anywhere you have chickens, you have mice and rats, at least that is the way it used to be, years ago. Some of these bastards are the size of what they call ‘Warf Rats’ like, River Rats. Well, at about 5 or 6 years old, on my first egg haul, I had cleared the nest houses and some of yard laying hens when I went to nudge one and it didn’t move, it just jiggled like a sack of pudding. I did it several times, the same thing happened again. I thought, I would reach under the chicken, get the egg and leave the chicken alone, sounded good. When I went to reached under the chicken, it moved over a little more and collapsed into a hole that the rats tunneled under the chicken during the night. While the chicken was asleep, the ‘warf rats’ ate the underside of the chicken completely off. I slung eggs everywhere, on the way to the big house to tell what I had found and I got a beating for lost eggs.
regards,