Murderous chickens attack & kill crow - is this normal?

[faithsbrood]

Hiya!

I wanted to share this wee experience I’ve recently had that I’m personally absolutely baffled by.

I went for a weekend away last week and had my relatives looking after the chickens (we currently have 9 hens, one cockerel, and 2 chicks being raised by one of the hens) and when my gran went to fix the automatic door, she witnessed 2 hens jump a crow and pin it down, and the whole flock peck out its eyes and kill it (safe to say she was traumatised). I have NEVER seen this behaviour from my flock before. I’ve had them find mice etc but killing such a big bird is kind of scary to me! Freaks me out a bit.

Has anybody else had this experience?? Let me know!!!

 

[nuthatched]

They can be territorial .

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Piranha flock! I've never witnessed anything quite like this, but there is that occasional video that pulls up of a mother hen attacking a hawk who was trying to get her chicks. I did have a flock that I nicknamed "Piranha Flock" for every new chicken they saw they pounced on and would have pecked to death if I wasn't there to witness it and run to the poor chicken's rescue.

 

[jbj25]

Crows have been known to kill chicks and you said you had 2 chicks.

And, there is some reason the Crow didn't just fly off. It must have been up to something.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Wowzers! Nope, never saw anything like this. Death Squad Chickens.

 

[Crazy Chicken Keeper]

Never seen anything like this before - but I have had a rooster kill a rat before. Man that is weird. Chickens can get cannibalistic but can;t imagine them killing a crow!

 

[BlindLemonChicken]

I’ve had chickens kill a rat and mice and my rooster tried to take on a hawk a couple weeks ago so I’m going to go with the crow being up to something and the flock went instinctively nuts on it. Very cool!

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Yeah, if the crow went for eggs or chicks ....

 

[WingItRanch]

Wow that's pretty crazy. Poor Gran! She'll never want to watch your chickens again

I'm in agreement that the crow was mostly likely going after the chicks. I bet the mom was the first one to attack and the others jumped in.

Fun fact, crows will have funerals to mourn their loss. I guess that's not exactly a "fun" fact but there ya go.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Wow that's pretty crazy. Poor Gran! She'll never want to watch your chickens again

I'm in agreement that the crow was mostly likely going after the chicks. I bet the mom was the first one to attack and the others jumped in.

Fun fact, crows will have funerals to mourn their loss. I guess that's not exactly a "fun" fact but there ya go.

I've seen that. Some crows were teasing a dog, swooping down into her yard and back up onto a power line, basically playing "chicken" with her and laughing their fool heads off. Finally the dog, a Doberman, caught and killed one. The crows set up a loud mourning and wailing, there were about 12 of them. Then more came from all over and joined in till there were at least 100. It was a little spooky like the movie "The Birds." They carried on for quite a while before they finally dispersed. If I hadn't seen it myself .... this was in Sun City, AZ.