Vicious Chickens - Fledgeling Robins beware!

[HappyTalons]

So we were out with the older half of the flock today (ONe BR, 2 BSL and an Australorp) free ranging in the back yard when I hear an odd sound. Between my four girls is a baby robin!
It was very small, feathered but perhaps the size of a ping pong ball. Poor thing started screaming with wide yellow mouth and all, and immediately all the ladies save the australorp started pecking it viciously. It was too small to fly or run away effectively.
I had to shoo my girls away pretty harshly, and I'm almost sure they would have killed the little guy had I not been there!

He was even bleeding a bit around his mouth, though it didn't seem to serious.

I tried to put the little guy back in the tree but he was having none of it (hopping all over) so he finally scampered off into some thick foliage.

Anyone else see anything like this with their chickens? Or are mine just crazy mean? (They've not been very nice to the younger pullets I put with them either)

 

[tasymo]

Oh yes. I had to rescue a full grown Mourning Dove from my Girl's run the other day. They were out free ranging and the door was left open. The Dove must have walked in, picking at the scratch scattered around, then tried to fly out, and of course hit the netting above. I went in to help it find the door, but my six hens followed me, and jumped the poor thing. The Dove lost a bunch of feathers (shed them, I think) but was able to fly away after I shoved the chickens away and scooped her up.

 

[gryeyes]

Several of my pullets are determined to massacre those sparrows that come in occasionally to scarf up some of their feed. I mean, do NOT get in the way of a running chicken with its neck stretched out and the beak pointed directly at its prey across the run! They could puncture tires!

And if more than one chicken sees the sparrow, it's really scary. (So scary it makes me laugh.)

Luckily, the sparrows are fast and get up high right away, then bounce along the bird netting to find any little tear, or finally slip through the upper portion of the fence through the holes in the chicken wire. (Yes, I have hardwire along the bottom...)

 

[chicken_china_mom]

Mine will kill on sight. It's sad. I was sitting in my Bantam chicken yard a month or two ago when I happened to look across the yard to where the Standard coop is, and I saw my girls playing a game of keep away. One was running with something dangling from it's beak, and the others were trying desperately to take it from her. So I sent my younger DD over to see what they were playing with, and she starts screaming for me to come. So I ran over and discovered that they had killed a baby robin that had fallen out of the tree in their yard, and they were playing keep away with it. We managed to get them to drop it and we got it out of there. My Marans roo just stood there looking at me like "Hey, I didn't tell them to do it!" They've killed another one since then. And the Bantams? Just as bad. The ducks too! After those terrible storms we've been having, a purple martin chick fell out of the tree in the Bantam yard. Well, the chickens pecked it and the ducks grabbed it by it's neck and brought it over to the duck pool and drown it. Imagine our horror when we discovered it at the bottom of the murky pool as we drained it. Found a dead robin chick in their yard too, trampled and pecked to death. They chase the robins, the sparrows, the martins, and anything else that isn't a chicken. Except the dogs. If I bring one of the dogs into the chicken yard, they tend to just ignore them. Except my EE roo George. If he sees my Chihuahua Cooper, he wants to sit on top of Cooper and go to sleep. I don't know why he does this, but Cooper hates it!

Here is George and Cooper. Cooper was quite disgusted here and wanted to get down, but I wouldn't let him, lol:

 

[Mrs. Green Thumbs]

Wow... good to know... I'll be making my run wild bird proof now. We have finches and bluejays that were going in and out via the welded wire and we thought "man the girls have a new friend" in fact the only worry I had was that the wild bird would bring in a disease or mites.... Now im more afraid for the wild birdies than I am for my ladies.