Chickens will definitely pick and peck at each other until things get ugly, even with all possible room to roam. It isn’t caused by poor conditions like too small cages and such, but factory level conditions definitely make the problem worse.
You can have an acre and a handful of hens, and they’ll at least occasionally peck at each other. The problem really only starts when there’s an injury, or conditions prevent a bird from moving away from more peck heavy birds. You don’t want an injured chicken kept with the flock. It isn’t even necessarily eating the injured bird out of some kind of prey drive. They just go at even minor wounds.
Now, with enough space and care being taken, that isn’t likely to result in death. But it can, no matter how much room is involved if you don’t isolate injured birds.
I’m not sure exactly how “wild” you’re thinking, since you aren’t going to run into truly wild chickens in most places. But feral ones that started as kept birds, those you’ll find in plenty of places. Our neighborhood has two flocks that started from abandoned birds something like twenty years ago. And they’ll definitely eat the hell out of one of their own if it gets sick or injured. And they’ll absolutely eat one of their own that gets killed by a car or whatever.
We have a partly feral hen that decided she owns our yard. A while back, her comb got injured, and we had to keep our other hen inside long enough for the injury to heal, since we couldn’t catch the volunteer hen. They see a little blood, and they’re like “yum!”, the same as they do when they see a worm or bug or even a piece of meat.
And chickens will eat any meat they can get to. Chicken is even considered a good food for chickens. Won’t hurt them, plenty of protein, and they’ll gladly pick the bones clean of scraps.
I’ve seen chicken roaming the streets, sitting in planters, generally acting like feral cats in Key West. They didn’t seem mean. I really thought they ate plants and bugs and things. I bet they eat a lot of dead lizards there.
Oh yeah, chickens will wreck lizards, alive or dead.
They really are predators, just not exclusively so.
Our rooster sometimes gets in the mood and will go out into the brush and run down mice and such. The hens usually just grab what comes to them though. They’re plenty satisfied with their feed, the occasional egg that they don’t want around, and bugs. But if a small rodent catches their eyes, it is on. There will be mighty roars! Okay, more loud and satisfied buking with the sounds of thrashing as they dismember their prey.
But they aren’t really mean per se. They’re just driven by instincts more than a lot of critters. They see blood, and that means food, even if it’s a flock member bleeding. They have to establish their hierarchy within the flock, and that does come with some (okay, a lot sometimes) pecking, but it isn’t being done just for the fun of it. It admissions maintains a stable flock and ensures resources for the ones that are on top if resources run low.
As long as there’s plenty of food and space, they don’t kill each other intentionally, as in to eat. They’re just highly motivated, and it goes bad sometimes.
They can be really sweet to each other, and to humans. My little hen is sitting here on the arm of the couch preening and seeking attention as I type this. Every evening when she comes in, we cuddle a bit before she naps. And she’ll nestle with both the other birds at times as well. She’ll also keep both of them in line with pecks as needed, including the big numpty of a rooster that’s twice her size, but ten minutes later they’ll be in their little spots next to each other being companionable.
They aren’t exactly smart, or even highly complex in the way you might expect birds to be if you’ve been around parrots and their ilk. But they do have that mix of vicious instinct and affection that a lot of social animals have.
If you’re interested, in my post history, last sunday I did my usual weekly comment in the !casualconversation@piefed.social pets sunday post. I put pictures of our three in the comment. The community used to be at !casualconversation@lemm.ee , but that instance is shutting down. But I’ve been telling stories about our adventures in chickening for a while now. They are endlessly entertaining to me lol.
Chickens will definitely pick and peck at each other until things get ugly, even with all possible room to roam. It isn’t caused by poor conditions like too small cages and such, but factory level conditions definitely make the problem worse.
You can have an acre and a handful of hens, and they’ll at least occasionally peck at each other. The problem really only starts when there’s an injury, or conditions prevent a bird from moving away from more peck heavy birds. You don’t want an injured chicken kept with the flock. It isn’t even necessarily eating the injured bird out of some kind of prey drive. They just go at even minor wounds.
Now, with enough space and care being taken, that isn’t likely to result in death. But it can, no matter how much room is involved if you don’t isolate injured birds.
I’m not sure exactly how “wild” you’re thinking, since you aren’t going to run into truly wild chickens in most places. But feral ones that started as kept birds, those you’ll find in plenty of places. Our neighborhood has two flocks that started from abandoned birds something like twenty years ago. And they’ll definitely eat the hell out of one of their own if it gets sick or injured. And they’ll absolutely eat one of their own that gets killed by a car or whatever.
We have a partly feral hen that decided she owns our yard. A while back, her comb got injured, and we had to keep our other hen inside long enough for the injury to heal, since we couldn’t catch the volunteer hen. They see a little blood, and they’re like “yum!”, the same as they do when they see a worm or bug or even a piece of meat.
And chickens will eat any meat they can get to. Chicken is even considered a good food for chickens. Won’t hurt them, plenty of protein, and they’ll gladly pick the bones clean of scraps.
I’ve seen chicken roaming the streets, sitting in planters, generally acting like feral cats in Key West. They didn’t seem mean. I really thought they ate plants and bugs and things. I bet they eat a lot of dead lizards there.
Oh yeah, chickens will wreck lizards, alive or dead.
They really are predators, just not exclusively so.
Our rooster sometimes gets in the mood and will go out into the brush and run down mice and such. The hens usually just grab what comes to them though. They’re plenty satisfied with their feed, the occasional egg that they don’t want around, and bugs. But if a small rodent catches their eyes, it is on. There will be mighty roars! Okay, more loud and satisfied buking with the sounds of thrashing as they dismember their prey.
But they aren’t really mean per se. They’re just driven by instincts more than a lot of critters. They see blood, and that means food, even if it’s a flock member bleeding. They have to establish their hierarchy within the flock, and that does come with some (okay, a lot sometimes) pecking, but it isn’t being done just for the fun of it. It admissions maintains a stable flock and ensures resources for the ones that are on top if resources run low.
As long as there’s plenty of food and space, they don’t kill each other intentionally, as in to eat. They’re just highly motivated, and it goes bad sometimes.
They can be really sweet to each other, and to humans. My little hen is sitting here on the arm of the couch preening and seeking attention as I type this. Every evening when she comes in, we cuddle a bit before she naps. And she’ll nestle with both the other birds at times as well. She’ll also keep both of them in line with pecks as needed, including the big numpty of a rooster that’s twice her size, but ten minutes later they’ll be in their little spots next to each other being companionable.
They aren’t exactly smart, or even highly complex in the way you might expect birds to be if you’ve been around parrots and their ilk. But they do have that mix of vicious instinct and affection that a lot of social animals have.
If you’re interested, in my post history, last sunday I did my usual weekly comment in the !casualconversation@piefed.social pets sunday post. I put pictures of our three in the comment. The community used to be at !casualconversation@lemm.ee , but that instance is shutting down. But I’ve been telling stories about our adventures in chickening for a while now. They are endlessly entertaining to me lol.
Thanks. I’ve read your posts about your little hen and her nighttime ritual. Sweet, bossy girl.
Chickens sounds like the cats of the bird world. Lovey and vicious. Would eat you if they were hungry, or maybe just for fun.
We have household joke that the hen is allowed to eat our eyeballs, particularly if we’re dead, but not limited to that state.
That’s what they used to say about cows too…