Trusting Chickens to Cull Their Own

[sixpantsmaloney]

These are just thoughts, not conclusions. Nor do I think I am right. Just thinking through something...

Our first batch of chicks had 1 Americauna that got picked on. We got rid of the bird assaulting her but a year later the Americauna died of apparently natural causes (no bugs, lice, etc. Just died).

This year we have 2 Crested Polish getting picked on. I understand that they have some physiological "defects" of the cranium and neck due to their breeding.

So my thought is, wow... are chickens just incredible eugenicists that cull their own with incredible accuracy? When a chick is getting pecked, rather than blaming the aggressor (which I always do), maybe we should recognize the chicken is identifying one who is not as viable as the others.

Of course in a limited-resources natural world scenario this makes sense. In a controlled coop with unlimited food and water the theory may not generalize to actual practice. Nonetheless, I share it for discussion.

 

[Eggs4Sale]

It seems that every time we have a hen who has babies, there's always one or more that she either leaves behind or tries to kill. When we intervened, we were always disappointed to have the chicks die on us within days. When a hen leaves her nest with her new brood and leaves eggs behind that are still hatching, we used to jump in there and try to fix it. Same result. Once, and only once, a chick survived. The mother hen shunned him, and she and the other chicks always pecked at him. That little roo just never grew right, always smaller than the rest, and he just didn't act 'right'. I always regretted intervening on his behalf because he never seemed content.
The mama hen knows. We've stopped intervening, though it's hard to watch. But we've come to appreciate Mother Nature and Mother hen doing what they need to do.

 

[onthespot]

There are a lot of reasons for agressive pecking which can result in death. Overcrowding, protein deficiency, genetic tendency to canibalism, boredom, stress, too hot, just to name a few. I have had several birds that I felt were defective and did not cull right away and my flock did not do the deed for me. I had to do it later myself when they were older and I was certain it was a bad enough defect that it ruined their quality of life.