Everybody Likes Chicken

A couple of nights ago we had a couple of bats in the house.  Not sure how they get in, but we get a couple of them in the house every year.  They aren't a big deal.  The bats always end up in our bedroom and I catch them in a trout fishing net and release the bats outside.  I only mention this because Sharon happened to be awake from the bat catching activity (did I mention that Sharon has an extreme fear of bats?) and she thought she heard her new chicks in distress in the barn.  So she went outside at about 3:30AM and checked on the chicks.  Not finding anything she went back to bed.  Again the sound of distress a little later and again the same thing.  Yesterday when she went to do her morning chores she noticed that she had gone from 230 chicks to something very, very short of that number.  She came in for breakfast and said I think I've lost all but about 50 chicks!  So last night the chicks were placed into a cattle water tank for the night to keep them safe.  During the process of transferring them to the tank the count was 87 chicks.  143 chicks were taken in just a couple of nights.  From the research that we've done and from others it sounds like rats.  Rats love to eat chicks. We've had rats before.  When the kids were little they spilled a lot of feed on the floors when they were doing chores, and that created a rat problem, but we saw the rats then.  If rats are taking the chicks we haven't seen any, or any evidence of them.  Sharon just ordered more replacement chicks.  Luckily they were available.  This late in the year it isn't always easy to get chicks.  Hopefully we can solve this mystery.