Can my chickens eat this cooked chicken carcass?

[raingarden]

Chickens don't care. They are natural cannibals.

Well, that settles it. My chickens are spoiled beyond hope and it is all my fault. They will not eat a chicken carcass but fight over the maggots when it finally becomes a stinking rotten mess. Instead of a flock of cannibals but have a flock of pansies. Where did I go wrong?

 

[CrspyChkn]

My chickens dont eat mice whole...
They do eat mice though.

 

[3KillerBs]

I wish I could unsee my hens fighting over a mouse, running it down , one flipping it into the air and eating it whole. It was like dinosaurs brought to life. They do same for lizards. I guess mice are just cuter.

Yep. Little dinosaurs.

 

[BrandonsBirbs]

Yep. Little dinosaurs.

Roar!!

 

[HollowOfWisps]

Just to clear up something, chickens are omnivores not carnivores

Technically yes I phrased that incorrectly. I have had two family members hospitalized, one in the ER and a funeral this week so my mind has not been the clearest.

 

[Isadora]

There's an important physical and physiological difference between a chicken swallowing a mouse whole, and a chicken swallowing a bone off a chicken carcass. The mouse, being whole, is nice and smooth on the outside, with the sharp little bones inside the body where they can't puncture anything on the way down the esophagus and through the crop. The bones only come into play once the mouse reaches the gizzard and gets ground up, but the gizzard has a very tough lining (meant to protect itself from being ground up), so a bone can't cause damage in there. A sharp piece of bone off the carcass goes down on its own though, pointy ends sticking out, through the soft esophagus and the soft, floppy bag that is the crop. Good opportunities for stabbing there. So, we can't say that eating exposed sharp bones from a chicken carcass is the same as chickens swallowing mice and lizards during their natural foraging behaviors. It's not a fair comparison.

Also cooked vs raw bones.
Cooked bones splinter while raw does not.

Technically yes I phrased that incorrectly. I have had two family members hospitalized, one in the ER and a funeral this week so my mind has not been the clearest.

 

[Pampered chicken girl]

Technically yes I phrased that incorrectly. I have had two family members hospitalized, one in the ER and a funeral this week so my mind has not been the clearest.

Oh no!

No problem, I just didn't want any new chicken owners to think they were carnivores. Nothing towards you!