I'll admit I've been avoiding this one...just because its so fucking crazy. It's so crazy, I gotta swear about it. As the hot weather set in we started having a weird chicken issue. Once a day we'd go out to our unique chicken area, that is the chickens that aren't white, to find one of the chickens completely hollowed out, guts gone but the bird left.
Sorry for the graphic photos, but I know this has been so crazy that I have to. So we'd find a bird, usually a docile breed like this black and white one, out there. Sometimes there'd be ants but often not which we found strange, but we just had no idea what was going on.
One day while John was feeding them, he saw it happen first hand. It was cannibalism. They were eating each other through the ass, intestines and all to leave the body to rot. The chicken he rescued was still alive, with half of it's organs missing. We took to the internet and found that this is actually the one of the most common issues among all chicken farmers, including free range.
We took extra lengths for about a week to make sure it wasn't diet related, leaving so much food for them that it was rotting on the ground. The problem resurfaced again one rainy morning and it seemed flockwide. These birds were killed because they were cannibals. It's a genetic trait that is also a social trait, so once it's started it's an issue until all the cannibals are removed. We spent about an hour watching them and killing them as they tried to eat their friends. Finally, it was down to 3 brown birds, one of which played dead and literally showed no interest in the cannabalistic tendancies. I took that one inside, where it's been cuddling with a friend wounded from cannibalism a few days prior. We caught it at just a bad wing wound, so it'll be fine. The other two seemed to decide against cannibalism and there hasn't been an issue since.
We have all sorts of breeds here both fighting and birds for food and eggs. Often times these genetics get mixed and the worst traits carry over. Whatever it was, it probably started with one or two chickens, with the rest of the flock to follow. It hasn't been an issue among our white chickens, just the interesting ones.
It does sound harsh to kill them, at a glance it does. But they were habitually eating their friends, ignoring other food options. Had any of them survived, I'm not sure I want cannibalistic traits to stay in my flock, I'd rather get new birds and be more selective of what we get. Make sure the conditions are perfect or as close as possible to discourage these genetic traits.
So there it is, the tale of the crazy chicken cannibalism mystery. We were floored to find out this was the cause of the hollowed out chickens. When I got into this, no one told me that this was a common thing. Of all the things we considered, like ants, we never ever expected that they were doing it to each other. From what we can tell they probably went for the birds going for the food, the more docile less likely to be cannibalistic types.
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I knew exactly what it was when you said the intestines were only ate. We had the exact same thing happen. Our Rhode Island Red chickens decided to eat our Plymouth Barred Rock chickens one day at the drop of a hat. It was crazy! We had three of each breed and they just flipped their lid one day and killed the others. I was ready to shoot them but my wife convinced me to give them away. We were upfront with the people taking them about what happened. Crazy huh?!?! Where we lived at the time, we called it cannibal hill.
Wow...that's insane. I totally understand why you had to do what you had to do--that is responsible animal caretaking, as harsh as it seems. Thanks for sharing this story, for those of us who are still in our first year of chicken-keeping (raises hand). I had no idea this was a thing, and I hope I never meet it.
The photos are oddly ...I can't say beautiful, with the dead birds lined up like that. But they remind me of some of those old still-lifes, with the game bird trussed up next to a bowl of fruit. (shrugs) That's relics from my art-ed degree, I guess.
Woah. Dude. I knew chickens would eat anything but honestly I had no idea how far that would go. That is a disturbing but very interesting tale! Thanks for sharing, I am going to go have some very interesting dreams now... yikes LOL
Naw I can handle it. Looking forward to more of your homestead reports
Wow! I knew that they could do that sometimes but I figured it was mostly due to maybe the chicken who was getting attacked was sick or something! I never thought it would be something they would just do for fun! That's crazy! In so glad you figured it out!
It seemed like the more aggressive breeds just started with the docile ones, the ones that were already bent over eating food off the ground, not paying attention to the others. Crazy stuff. When there can be veggie scraps, several types of feed and supplimented with scrambled eggs.... and they go for their buddies
Since starting chickens this year I have definitely concluded they're assholes in general, to each other mostly. Haha like no regard for the other! Haha totally self preservation mode!
Yeah, I've found that too. I didn't think they'd be so mean to eachother. Ducks aren't that mean. They just cuddle unless youve got asshole male muscovys haha
My ducks (Swedish) were assholes when they were babies! Haha I added some geese and there was a lethargic one (who is doing well now), they pecked at his eyes and hurt his eyelids. Haha he's fine but his eyelids are a bit messed up now. Poor thing.
That is crazy! I have raised chickens twice and never saw that. Wow!
We think it has something to do with the recent hot temperatures. It's the hottest it gets in Acapulco right now.
Oh ok. Still weird though. Imagine if people did that when it was hot.
This totally blew me away.. so weird!! I want my own chickens.... but not chicken-eatin-chickens! Yikes! Haha!
Look into breeds that are more likely to have the genetic trait...I've heard Rhode Island Reds are a common one and I'm pretty sure that was at least one of the culprits here as we had a lot of them.
Its something I never expected to deal with. Just be aware its a possibility especially in hot weather and if it happens once, just a hollowed out body, you'll know. Then you can watch and eliminate them only having to maybe kill a few if you catch it early. We just thought it was anything else before that. We even seriously considered aliens haha
Good info!! And yeah... never rule out aliens 😜😉👍
How odd! I have noticed a few of my chickens with some butt thing going on where bugs are crawling around on them and the other chickens are pecking at their butt. Not sure what the cause is of that, but I hope the other chickens don't get carried away and eat the chicken too.
Yeah, it'd be something to keep a watch on. Even something of interest like say a worm in a butt could start the trait and once it gets going it seems to continue until those birds are eliminated.
holy shit I had no idea that was a thing. Glad I learned about that.
That's one of the sickest things I've heard. I mean, the way they work themselves inside and then leave their buddies to rot.. Those Acapulco chicken are pyschos! Let's be happy humans aren't like that.
Wild story, Thanks for sharing. Shame to take out the whole flock but probably like any animal with a taste for something needs segregation or to be put down.
Hard to tell which ones had their turn at the victims and may repeat.
Sorry for your loss.
Wasn't the whole flock, we killed them one by one as we watched them go for there fallen friends. 5 from that batch didn't really show any signs of cannibalism, one of which died from pecking wounds to the head it had sustained right before I killed the instigators. The rest of the chickens on the property have been unaffected.
None the less... A twilight zone, Outer limits whatever of a TV episode of WTF !
Thanks to your post I will have an option if I see the same.
Thank you very much :-)
Very Valuable info, Thanks for sharing
Love Always
Love Always
Holy crap. Lol. Were thinking of getting some chickens, good to know. Freaking cannibals. Dont eat your friends geesh
For most of my childhood, my family kept a modest number of chickens - and I never saw anything like that. I think I may have read about chicken cannibalism in a meat / egg industry sense but I never looked into it. At a guess, that behaviour could be triggered as a stress response to not having enough space or other stress inducing factors like heat, lack of water, etc but diet is also worth checking out. Entirely different food rather than more of the same would be needed. I'm glad you've still got a few committed non-cannibals though. One other thing... All of the chicken enclosures I've had experience with have been fairly generous in size - large enough for me to stand up and move around in and typically the chickens were let out for a few hours every day.
Wow this is wild! Poor chickens! ☹️
Never heard of it before. Sharing to get others to chime in on.
Ohhh.. very sad matter :(
sorry for that dear
now that's some freaky tale to tell at a camp out :P I hope it never happens for you ever again :) thanks for sharing
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STOPThis is very weird. Never seen that in my childhood and I've seen a lot of chickens, my grandmas used to have them in the yard, and I would feed them and clean around after them sometimes.
However recently I have seen a video on YouTube about how the so called "free range" chicken are raised for consumption on the food market, over there I've seen this happening and it was disgusting, but I thought that was more like an isolated incident, didn't know that there is such "disease" among chickens.
I would've done the same, get rid of the cannibals.
It's something I never expected to deal with. It's common among fighting birds, it's one of the ways they kill during fights so all it took was a bird with enough fighting stock in a bad mood and bam.
I have never heard of this happening, so thanks for sharing.
That's is insane I had no idea they did that, that's really interesting. Sorry about your loss.
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I'm even happier we started with ducks and not chickens now. sheesh!
Yeah the worst we've had is some asshole male muscovy ducks who just hit puberty haha
oh man! Ours are about 12 weeks and I still can't tell which ones are male!!
I know the struggle.
I haven't raised chickens for a long time and was not aware of this - learned something new. You say this is common? I watch a lot of homesteader videos and can't recall them mentioning this.
Google chicken cannibalism.
I grew up with chickens. We had about 15 reds. We could throw mice in there that we caught with a trap and those chickens would eat them up. We had a roster that would abuse other chickens, but I have never heard of this😅. Thanks for sharing!