Is it normal for chickens to kill one another?

[Gnarled Carrots]

They're in an Airstream right now, so they're really partially outside. And I'm guestimating on dimensions. The trailer is 27 feet and I have them closed off in about 1/3 of it. It also doesn't have solid "walls." The walls of an Airstream are really quite pliable, so having them run into something with enough force isn't that likely of a possibility, although I guess that it could happen.

There are also no peck marks, no blood, nothing that looks obviously broken or signs of a struggle. She didn't have bloody stools or look lethargic in any way prior to this. We live on a farm, so it's always possible that a mouse or something got in there, but I think that they're too big for mice to be a problem at this point. And it really didn't look like anything happened to her. After the first couple weeks I really didn't think that anything would happen to them and expected all of them to live! So I'm really just surprised to have a death at this point.

Their coop doesn't have electricity and is too far from an outlet to run an extension cord, otherwise I would already have them fully outdoors. We're also not quite done building it. Snow in April really stalls production!

They're also outside during the day. The only time that they're inside is at night when I'm assuming that they're asleep. Whenever I check on them they're on their perches or huddled up together sleeping just fine.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

They sound alright with the room they have and how you're dealing with them. I would just consider it a freak occurrence, reason unknown, About a 1/3 of my chickens will die without any obvious sign before, I haven't lost any that young yet but many are good at being fine right up to the end.

We could still get some snow into May. You just never know with out weather.