Hello!

I often write about travel. This is my main hobby. And I live in the Altai village, quite large.

What is a village? — These are vegetable gardens, animals are different … Since my husband and I are lovers of waving somewhere, out of all the animals we can only keep a bird. For the period of our departure, our relatives are quite coping with it, many thanks to them.

And a few weeks ago, I began to notice that my red laying hens (cross Loman Brown) began to rush badly. They are only 1 year and 4 months old, for another two years they will continue the most productive period, that is, age has nothing to do with it. I increased the rations for the chickens, added bone meal to the feed, fish oil, feed sulfur (everything in proportion, according to the instructions). And they rush less and less, became shabby, nervous.

And this only applies to laying hens. Larger chickens of the meat-egg direction (a cross between Brahma and noble hens) are in order, but they have also become somewhat shy.

And soon I found a wounded laying hen with a peeled back. Dropped off, healed. Returned to the chicken coop. And here again — wounded.

My husband and I decided that 3 roosters for our company of 15 hens is a lot. It is they who, in the process of fulfilling their rooster duties, injure the backs of the laying hens and pluck out the feathers. And two roosters were quickly moved to the freezer. They left the youngest and calmest. But the Lomans continued to lose their feathers and completely stopped rushing! And the situation in the chicken coop became even worse, all the chickens are constantly some kind of agitated.

We decided that the rooster was too big for our laying hens, and also sent it to the freezer. Well, let there be dietary eggs!

But then something unimaginable began: every day I began to find one or another chicken with wounds in the chicken coop. I planted, filled the wounds with greenery, smeared with ichthyol ointment …

I couldn’t figure out where they managed to get hurt! Maybe some kind of predator got into the habit? They checked the chicken coop for cracks and holes, which they found — closed up.

And yesterday I went into the chicken coop and watched the picture: one of the hens, Loman Brown, drove her sister into a corner, behind the feeder, so that that poor fellow could not get out, and literally eats her alive. By the way, this cannibal was the only one who did not have feathers plucked on her back.

The hen being eaten alive no longer resisted. She lay with her head buried in the sawdust bedding, and showed no signs of life. Her whole back was peeled off and a hole the size of a walnut was eaten out of her upper thigh.

I grabbed the cannibal hen (she was so engrossed that she didn’t even notice me entering the chicken coop) and locked her in an empty, cold barn. (Her fate with the advent of her husband was decided — in the freezer!).

It became clear why the half-blood Brahmas did not suffer — they are much larger and their plumage is more magnificent, the cannibal element simply could not cope with them, she was just shuging.

And I brought the wounded laying hen home and tried to treat it. Filled with green wounds, put in the bathroom in a box on a healthy barrel.

The chicken started to come to life. Photo of the author. The chicken started to come to life. Photo of the author.

While watering greenery, the chicken groaned — it was evident that it was very painful!

But after a few hours she got up with difficulty, drank water, pecked at the feed.

By the evening she wanted to take a walk, they moved her to a large box. The wounds smeared with greenery were smeared with ichthyol ointment. I think I’m leaving the chicken.

So, for nothing they decided the most beautiful and good-natured roosters! And the whole thing was in one bastard who had a program failure. And the failure occurred incomprehensibly from what: the conditions of detention are normal, there is plenty of food, the chicken coop and the paddock are spacious.

We have been keeping chickens for 20 years, but this is the first case of cannibalism.

Now I often go to the chicken coop, I watch. But everything became calm. I read that chickens can adopt cannibal behavior. I look, no one has learned something bad from that reptile.

Tell me, my village readers who breed chickens, have you ever encountered cases of cannibalism? What usually triggers this behavior?