Last evening I went to check on my 2 muscovy hens that are sitting on eggs. I spotted a egg out of the nest so I went and picked it up, to find a hole in it and most of the contents gone from the egg. At first I thought it was a bad egg, but I really starting to check thinks out. I have a gate between the hens and it was loose and then noticed the one hen was bleeding from the top and sides of her beak, not a lot just kinda bruised a bit and one tiny puncture wound.

I looked around the coop and didn't find any critter, and it looked as if they rebuilt their nests. I did however notice a lot of extra poop around and some was in the one hens nest. This is the second egg I found the first one was in a water bucket broken the same way. I though that just maybe, the kids in the area, got in there and broke the egg, so they dumped it in there. Now I'm worried it is a rat or something. We thought the coop was pretty predator proof, and I am going to fix a board we have that is loose with fencing under it. We put the water bucket over that spot so it will drain. Maybe it got in that way.

Also my hens don't seem to be eating and drinking all that much. I haven't opened their coop door to let them out because I didn't know if I should and it is really been cold hear in OH. should I give them the opportunity to go out for a bit? When I feed them and open their nest doors they don't move! Sorry so long, this is our first hatch.

I didn't try to find out how many eggs are missing I didn't want to stress them out any more than they were.

The extra poo has me worried, it seems they do that when something upsets them! Thanks for any thoughts!

Brenda