Murderous chickens

[Quill]

G’day,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place but its an emergency, we currently own 4 chickens for about 6 months now, they are free to roam during the day and kept in a cage during the night.

Today as I went out to let them out, they chickens had attacked, killed and ripped the insides of the smallest one out through its bottom leaving its entrails through out the cage. The 3 remaining chickens are covered in blood.

We are currently very worried about the chickens, what could have caused them to do such a thing, why did they turn on one of there own, and what should we do about the surviving chickens.

Any reply is greatly appreciated, as I have yet to tell my younger sister about its grisly fate.

Thank you in advance.

Quill

 

[nzpouter]

they go wild and relentless when they see blood, things happen., the smallest on might have an in jury/ scratch around the vent area or worse, bloodied poo.

 

[Quill]

it did have a bloody back side yesterday, we didnt know what it was, and were going to photograph it today and see what we could find on the interenet about it, could have the other ones attackted its backside

 

[Squeaky]

You will want to get the blood off the survivors before they start pecking each other.

 

[Quill]

okay thank you, should we keep them seperate for a while

 

[patandchickens]

I would just about guarantee that what happened was that the one had a prolapse. You *have* to notice and separate 'em as soon as that happens, because chickens are just programmed to go after bloody tissue and you've seen where that leads. They are really kind of feathery little Velociraptors when there's blood in sight.

I would not worry especially much about the other three, they were just behaving normally for chickens. But you need to keep a close eye on your flock and next time if you see any sign of prolapse, or any other injury, separate that bird at once til you have the situation under control.

Condolences,

Pat

 

[jjthink]

So sad for the poor little one that was mauled to death

I've never had chickens that hurt one another if one was injured but some chickens are known to peck at blood so a bleeding bird should immediately be separated if the temperament of the others under such circumstances is not known..
JJ

Edited to add that Pat said it well while I was typing away!

 

[Quill]

okay thank you verry much for the help, now i got to explain to my young sister what happened


thanks again

quill

 

[mbu]

Group,

Since the chickens are kept in a confined area at night what if Quill put a red light on them so that they wouldn't see blood if there was any? I'm not talking about a heat lamp as that may make them too hot - just a red light. What are your thoughts?

 

[Quill]

so just a normal light raped in red plastic.

what is prolapse, (sorry if its a dumb question) is it like a disease that could be spread amoungs the birds

thansk again