Two chickens fought and drew blood after living peacefully for a year!

[talper]

Hi - I've never posted anything here before. We have 2 Americauans and an Astrolorp. They've lived together happily for a year. All of a sudden tonight we heard chicken squacking in the middle of the night and heard thrashing around and thought there must be a raccoon in there attacking them but as far as we can tell, one of the Americaunas ("Feather") was fighting the Astrolorp ("Midnight"). The other Americuana ("Crystal") was quietly roosting through the whole thing. Midnight had blood on her beak but it didn't look like she was injured so it may have been Feather's blood. While we were checking Midnight out, we lost sight of Feather and couldn't find her. I hope we can find her in the morning but are worried about her. I guess my question though is what could cause two chickens to start fighting all of a sudden in the middle of the night after living together for so long in peace??

 

[Mahonri]

Hi and welcome to BYC.

I can't imagine that they were fighting... and at night when it's dark???, I'm guessing you had a predator in the coop.

You probably saved them. This time around.

 

[PoultryPedia]

Mahonri's logic seems very sound to me.

 

[Harrietsmum]

Double check the security of your coop. Look for small openings, loose or rotten boards, wire not securely attached, tunnels under, small holes, anywhere that something could have got in. You were lucky this time, but you might not be next time.

 

[talper]

Hmm - ok thanks! Feather was fine this morning - we found her in the backyard pecking around as if nothing had happened. It must have been some kind of predator in the coop but we don't see any sign of it. Thanks!