# Help!!! Rats ? Sickness?



## ancient (Jun 21, 2022)

Help. I've been raising goats for years and have no idea what's going on here. We live in the pacific northwest  and even for here it's been very wet, also we have had major boom in the rat population.  
 So I noticed many of my kids this year have sores? Bites ? On their necks. Never seen anything  like it. I was seriously  considering  rats but the adults are untouched. We moved all the goats to a new area with livestock fence so we could put poison  down in the barn and have been using  calf hutches to lock the kids in at night  due to predators. Now a few that were fine have mangled necks.
 Picture is of a kid who I had brought to the house a week ago, his neck was like that already, been using antibacterial stuff like furazone.  I want to rule out disease since I have a bottle baby that I brought to the house pretty much after birth who is doing great and she  shares a dog crate at night with the one in the picture and she is unaffected by the other baby with the sores.
 I need some guidance  of what this could be and what to do next. Could rats be to blame???


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## Baymule (Jun 22, 2022)

I agree with you, I think rats are to blame. I've had them kill every baby duck and every baby chicken before. I hate them! The best poison I've found is Just One Bite. It's great stuff. There are also water traps you can set up. look on youtube for water rat traps.


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## farmerjan (Jun 22, 2022)

I think I would make a vet trip and rule out any kind of fungus type disease from the excessive wet wether also.  I agree that it could be bites... but you may also be dealing with severe secondary infections...


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