If you ever thought keeping chickens was an idyllic life of waking to their gently clucking and collecting fresh eggs for breakfast – and nothing more – then think again.
Chickens are well-known cannibals. If any other bird in the flock has a prolapse and you don’t get to it quick enough they’ll peck at the dangling flesh and pull out the injured chicken’s insides, killing it in a most horrible manner.
Fortunately we’ve always managed to catch and quarantine any of our hens when they’ve prolapsed to prevent that, but we didn’t manage to save poor Gregory from a similar fate.
She was the bully of the flock, who used to pluck the feathers of her sisters. For the last couple of months, though, she’s been very quiet and withdrawn, keeping herself to herself and pecking nobody. She’s been slowing down, and spending a lot of time sleeping.
Today she clearly slowed down too much, and the other hens either decided she was dead already, and therefore fair game, or made up their minds to get their own back.
We got back from a quick drink to find her wedged at the back of the pen, stuck between the wheels of the coop and the mesh of their compound, bloody and badly pecked.
A whole slice of skin was missing and we both assumed that she must have been dead, so we got a bin bag and our gardening gloves and moved the coop to retrieve her. As we did, though, she moved her head and breathed very weakly.
We put her in quarantine but, as we suspected, she quickly died. We gathered her up in the morning, and she was hard.
She looked very peaceful, poor thing. My only hope is that now that she’s gone the flock will calm down.
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{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
Naughty chicken, but no chook deserves to die.
A reality of life I am affraid.
Have a good day!
Martin