I am not going to make too much out of it but if cannibalism could be as easily bred out of a chickens' blood line as you say then every breed, but especially commercial intensive-producing sorts like layers and meat birds etc. that are subject to intense breeding or inbreeding to remove objectionable traits like going broody, slow weight gain or poor feed conversion then cannibalism would have been eliminated or bred out of commercial or intensive-production sorts of chickens years and years ago.
Reading some industry publications would show you that it's only recently been considered a problem able to be eradicated rather than an inevitability, and since then it has been bred out of some lines quite successfully. There are peer reviewed studies (etc) demonstrating how easy it is to do so. This has even been done on many other domestic species, because obviously it's worth it for economical reasons. If you do some research you'll find scientific literature documenting it; it's not some kind of farfetched theory, it's fact, and proven, many times over.
It may interest you to know that selecting against cannibalism is being done right now all over the world. Right now in Australia for example, animal rights laws banned sow stalls for more than a week after birthing, so they've had to select against cannibalistic and vicious sows (though obviously they've been selecting against cannibalistic sows for a while now because a sow who eats her litter isn't worth much economically).
So they've let the sows out to interact with one another and are now culling out rather than keeping those showing warning signs of being killers or cannibals; less than a year in they've got a peaceful herd in the piggeries practicing this.
That's how strongly individual a trait it is --- NOT endemic to the species at all; remove those who show warning signs and the rest will mingle without harm. Continue to do that for a few generations, and the trait fades out of the line. As per your examples --- this is exactly the very same way they bred out traits like maternal behavior.
Do you remember a few years back when complete debeaking, red lights, etc were the norm in all battery cages and meat pens? How'd that change? Doing a little check into history will reveal traits that were previously accepted had to be selected against once animal rights laws changed the ways in which the animals could be kept or treated.
Because every commercial chicks' beak is cropped off soon after hatching to discourage cannibalism and also because it requires real human workers who are paid actual cash wages to do this work, you would think wouldn't you that all those well educated poultry scientist would be working on a solution to this money losing cannibalism problem like they did to find a way to sex chicks by feather color instead of paying Japanese guest workers each a 1/4 of a million dollars a year to do the job manually.
That's no longer the case in many hatcheries; once animals gained more rights it became illegal to utilize many of the old control methods. Some hatcheries still use those methods, but all the ones I've seen have birds with full beaks. I did get some hens, once, missing the very tips, but that was years ago.
So I humbly suggest that you offer your services to the commercial intensive-production chicken industry so that you can help mankind breed a better commercial bird and at the same time every year save the tips of the beaks of billions and billions of baby chickens.
...It's already been done, LOL! It's a known option. Not everybody wants to use it, some will cling to the old ways until forcibly divested of them (or dying of old age or possibly terminal ignorance), but that doesn't mean it isn't known to work; it's just going to take the industry a bit of time to completely convert, as it does with everything.
It shouldn't even require *Genetically Modify Engineering to achieve this breakthrough because you already have the seed material in your own Heritage Chicken flock and your Heritage chickens are all the same species as Commercial sorts of Poultry are so you would only have to breed your birds into the commercial lines then select for the good traits inherent in both the commercial and heritage blood lines like high egg production, fast weight gain, good feed conversion and no cannibalism.
*Genetic Modification Engineering is the term, well, one of them anyway; and no, LOL, just as with another social trait (maternal behavior) it's something which is naturally bred out of/into lines depending on the circumstances the animals are kept under and which ones are chosen to breed. No need to do anything unnatural, just ordinary propagation or culling out of traits, via reproductive selection of animals carrying, or not carrying, that trait. Doesn't get simpler than that.
And I don't have a 'Heritage Chicken' flock. Never said I do. But you and I have talked on other threads and you know this.
I have complete mongrels, as you know, and if I can breed malignant social traits out with complete mongrels, anybody with purebreds can do it even easier.
And no, commercial lines don't need my mongrels' genetics added to them; I specifically breed away from such intensive meat/egg producers, they're not ethical in my opinion, nor sustainable; but that's all beyond the point, because the very commercial breeds you're talking about somehow upgrading with random mongrels have been used in tests to breed cannibalism out. No need to add new blood to it. Just simply select against it for about 7 generations. Easy. So easy the most ignorant novice can do it...
If you paten your cannibalism free blood line you and your children stand to make multi millions yearly. Good luck!
lol... You're a funny guy, george... Make multi millions yearly trying to compete with companies doing the very same thing.
Best wishes.
