serious cannibalism

[oguzakyuz]

Dear All,

I've 6 chickens in a run about 105 square feet. Chickens spend almost all of their time in the run. Two or three times a week I let them out to the larger backyard for a few hours. 2 of my chickens are very good layers and laying consistently even in the midst of winter. However, they also have a horrible habit of pecking the backs of other chickens. Today I caught two of them literally "eating" one of my other chickens. When I came to the rescue, the chicken was seriously bleeding. I think she will survive but I had to do a makeshift separation of my run, and the coop, into two with bird netting so that these two chickens do not keep attacking the bleeding bird (I haven't noticed the other four engaging in any attacks).

What would you recommend? If they weren't laying as good as they do, I would consider eating them. I bought these chickens from separate sources as grown-ups (it has been about 4 months since I got them). Would this sort of behavior occur to a lesser extent if I bought them as chicks and let them grow up together? If so I may consider thinning out this flock and starting anew.

Thanks for any advice.

 

[MillersFarm]

Hi, Sorry to hear about this... what you can do for now to stop the other birds from harming each other is you can try putting chicken peepers/blinders on them
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CWQ2Y...t=&hvlocphy=1023159&hvtargid=pla-391060885386 Most people normally use them on pheasants when raising large numbers of them to stop them from picking on each other.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Hi, welcome to BYC!

No raising them together won't change things.

Red and blood especially INVITE pecking and cannibalism.. Some people use a product called Blu Kote, it is a disinfectant that hides the red.

The gal being bullied should be separated in sight of the other birds in order to somewhat remain part of the flock instead of increasing new pecking order issues.

Another option would be to give the bullies a time out instead of the victim. Maybe even out of view for a couple days so they have to work their way back into the pecking order.

Yes, people have also used Peepers, described by the other poster successfully.

Hope your girl recovers quickly!

 

[Fairview01]

Once a chicken learns its friends are walking MREs the only way I know to stop is to give the offenders a one way ticket to freezer camp. They are tasty. It can be a learned behavior, a result of inadequate feed and I think also genetic. Usually the ones with perfect feathering are the guilty ones.

From time to time when I hatch on rare occasions I have a chick in the hatch that is hell bent on pecking at the others toes despise having feed available on a paper towel. The first two I took the time to segregate and raise. Immediately upon return to the groups several times over they started it again. Anymore I see that behavior in the incubator I just put them down straight away with extreme prejudice.

From an evolutionary perspective an aggressive chick programmed to kill and eat the weaker ones makes survival sense. Still goes in some other bird species. Just figured it was a throwback gene.

 

[theoldchick]

What kind of chickens are they? Diet? I agree, Pinless Peepers will help with your problem.

 

[Pensmaster]

Try a high protein cat food as diet treat. I haven’t had to recently but when they did that it seemed to help. Also helps with egg eating.
Now if I could only get the squirrels to quit eating the eggs.

 

[sourland]

Pin Less Peepers and a balanced diet can help with this very bad habit. If diet is low on protein, supplementation is a good idea, and then switch diet.

 

[EggSighted4Life]

Pin Less Peepers and a balanced diet can help with this very bad habit. If diet is low on protein, supplementation is a good idea, and then switch diet.

In my research regarding feather meal, since I always say they are made from 90% protein and its' amino acids...

I found that feathers being mostly keratin actually have a very LOW digestibility. Which leads me to wonder if feather pecking and eating has less to do with nutrition and more to do with maybe boredom or habit??

Though I AM a firm believer that nutrition is the base for ALL things health and MANY things behavioral.

 

[oguzakyuz]

Thanks for all the suggestions. Pinless peepers could actually solve the problem - I had no idea such a thing existed.

 

[oguzakyuz]

Unfortunately peepers are not sold in my country and had to order them abroad. It will take them a while to get here. I ended up tabling the offending chicken as her habit was very strong. She would stalk other chickens and eat their feathers. She would also block them from food. That could have been probably why my other hens were not laying.