Killer chickens - mice beware!

[luckitri]

My husband raised chickens as a 4H project when he was a kid. At that time, if one chicken was being picked on by the others, they would throw in some fresh kill meat, usually a small animal one of the boys had hunted or trapped. Chickens LOVE raw meat. They are not vegetarian in the least although they can survive that way. So anyway, the raw meat diverted attention from the victim long enough for her to recover and refeather. He had warned me with my first bunch who were free-range and competed with our dogs for kitchen scraps - potato peels and the like - and one day I was trimming meat and did find out how much they loved it.

 

[Shannonwbl]

I guess it makes sense. Most larger birds, hawks, cranes etc. are all meat eaters. I was just surprised because being new to this I had never read anything about chickens eating meat (especially live) just bugs and some kitchen scraps in addition to the feed. I will continue to let them hunt the mice - I'm just not going to watch!

 

[CarriBrown]

Chickens are a direct ancestor of the velociraptor, so I'm not the least bit surprised by their mouse/rat/whatever else killing ways!