Cannibalism

[johnbh]

I had to kill one of my four hens today. Sometime between my first morning visit to the chicken yard and 3 PM when I next visited, three of the sisters had pecked a large and deep hole into the back of the fourth. These hens had been very happy birds with the free run of five grassy acres until this week when my wife banned them to the much smaller pen because we were expecting guests and she wanted the place spruced up. They certainly were not over crowded. What do you think triggered this behavior?

 

[theFox]

Quote:
Just a wild guess, the stress of not being able to range over anywhere as near as much area as they used to is the likely cause. It is possible that they have never really gotten along but were able to stay away from each other.

In all likely hood you now have three cannibals (or maybe only one and you really needed to find and cull her) and eventually the number of birds will have to be further decreased.

I had a case of this a short while ago and was lucky enough to catch the culprit in the act, end of both the problem and the culprit.

Keep a close eye on them and I'm sorry you had to do what you did.