Small Farm, letter to editor

Has anyone seen the recent issue of Small Farm Canada and the letter to the editor concerning cannibalism (feather picking) in chickens. An earlier issue claimed it was daylight from the south that lead to this behaviour. The letter writer says it has not been his experience, the feather picking is a result of overcrowding and when "...on the rare occassion had a chicken which chose to become a victim chicken, refusing to stand up for itself. THe only solution for these birds is sudden death."

HOLD THE PHONE! Either this writer is in his personal life an enormous bully, or a complete idiot about chicken psychology/behviour! If this person happens to be a member of this site or a friend of yours sorry, but I think keeping chickens exceeds your farming abilities, keep brine shrimp instead.

Picture, in your head, the unending mayhem and war that would occur in your hen house if every chicken stood up for itself! If none of them 'backed down' you'd end up with the Last Man Standing chicken. A flock of one. It simply does NOT work in chicken society for chickens to 'stand up' for themselves! There is jockeying and shoving and bullying until everyone has reached the appropriate spot in the hen house society and then there should be calm. In my opinion it is the miserably and pointlessly aggressive bird who gets out of control that is the problem in the hen house. NOt that one bird chooses to become a victim! Instead one chooses to be a tyrant!

To me, killing the picked on bird is patently gross and offensive! I think it also points to lazy, easy-way-out poultry management. Only kill it if its injuries are beyond hope. BUt to blame the victim! That's just a complete failure of humanity, a failure to protect your birds from each other and a failure at responsible husbandry! I admit, that remark offended me. IT also, in my mind, displayed a glaring ignorance of chicken behaviour. To remove the victim leaves the bully bird to victimize someone else. Removing the victims does NOT do away with a bully. A bully, unchecked, will continue to be a bully. Often THEY are cured by head removal!

In MY experience, crowding is indeed a problem, and certain breeds of birds become aggressive monsters as they age (ISA Browns, will NOT allow them on my property!) I was flabberghasted and blown away by this response. I wonder if anyone else read it and shared my shock and What The...reaction? If you happen to be the writer again, sorry, but I cannot apologize for judging you as not fit to keep chickens. But that's just my opinion.

I agree whole-heartedly, Uno. I wonder sometimes where people get their ideas. And how many others will read that silly opinion and decide they had better do away with any chickens losing feathers to picking! goodness knows we would not want any 'victim chickens' in our flock that do not put up a good fight! Hmm, is he raising up a flock of backyard layers or cockfighters?

While I as agree with you that culling the victims is not the way to go, I also believe any claim that feather picking is caused by sunlight is even more ridiculous. I can just see the farmers of these birds never allowed outside looking at their south facing windows and deciding it can't be an overcrowding issue, it must be that the light coming in those windows is too bright! If I just dim the lights more then they won't be able to see eachother enough to pick on each other! A bit of a case of tunnel vision on whoever said that one.

Any time I have ever had feather picking issues, it was always immediately solved by expanding the coop or run. As for the victim birds, a better solution by far I think is to redesign the coop to have more nooks and crannys for picked on birds to hide out in for a while.

Hi Uno, was cruising through the forum and came across your thread. Firstly XOX to you! You were the first person on ACE to help me and answer all my newbie hatching questions, I often refer back to the things you helped me with. Secondly ... wow really, remove the victim, yup the bully would just keep on terrorizing each bird until there was a flock of one, the one who should have been dealt with!

XOX Monika

Assorted reasons for feather picking but yeah, overcrowding is usually the problem.

Easy to have a flock of no victims. I once tried a hybrid that was the reverse cross of the brown layers. The birds were all black and none of them were victims. Get yourself a bunch of those and enjoy gathering eggs with every single bird biting your hand as you do. I'll take the victims thank you very much.

Maybe someone should ask the editor if he/she can check facts before printing nonsense. I know it's letter to the editor but . . .
Anyway love the forum and look for my advise here as opposed to there. Don't get me wrong I normally read my Small Farm when it comes in, except for this time as my Mom spent 8 days in the hospital and I used the term we were in the hospital when I was talking to someone yesterday, (the joys of Alzheimer's)

I've been thinking...do you suppose this letter to the editor was meant sarcastically? Tongue in cheek? Do you think the writer could have known how crazy this 'chicken choosing to be a victim' idea is? Because..I just can't think a rational person would take this view. My head is not computing this as a legitimate opinion held by someone who keeps chickens. It has GOT to be a joke.

A whole bunch of what? I've been accused of being full of it before, but no one has told me I have a whole bunch of it. I don't know if I should be complemented or worried.

Complementing you - not possible. Complimenting, well yes, that's what he was doing, with good reason!

.

Thanks for clearing that up Higgins, I shall then take that as a compliment! (Thank you Pops! ) Sorry about my spelling error ipf, every now and then my brain takes a holiday. I rely on the spell check to alert me to a problem and yet on that word, it did not. I was a little suspicious of it, obviously not suspicious enough.

Chooses to be a victim, eh? Let me tell you a story. As I was tending my silkies yesterday, an unsuspecting Mille cockerel hopped out into general population. I thought nothing of it and watched as he strutted confidently into the rest of the inmates. Being a victim was the last thing on his mind. Now have I mentioned general population in this barn is a gang of young Cornish bantams? They were all over this poor boy like white on rice attacking him from all angles. When I finally secured the silkies and went out to catch him, the pullets had him cornered and were pulling out his tail feathers while a young Cornish cockerel was having his way with him. Frightening! It was like one of those prison-gone-wrong movies. I caught the poor boy, cocky no more, and put him back in with the silkies who milled around him like a bunch of moronic dopes, not in the least concerned with the sight or smell of blood.

This poor boy didn't choose to be a victim, he had victimhood thrust upon him.

I learned a lesson here and that lesson is....be glad I am not the size of a Cornish bantam.

Long live the moronic dope Silkies!

Well, I agree with Uno. Anyway, I had a real nice hen I wanted to breed from and she was a bully. As she picked on her pen mates, I released each one to the free range flock, thinking they could recover and the bully would stop. Uhh uhh, no, she didn't stop and I ended up with a pair mating as she bullied all the hens in with her. When I had enough eggs hatched, she became soup and the barn was peacefull again. One son was a bully, so he became soup too. The rest of the chicks grew up to be normal chcikens.

uno wrote:I think keeping chickens exceeds your farming abilities, keep brine shrimp instead.

BAHAHAHAHA!!!

Coming in late on this one........again. I chose not to renew my subscription to this magazine last year because of inadequate, uninformed information they published on poultry raising. The cover showed a photo of a chicken and the title was 'Your top 5 chickens questions answered'. When I read them, I couldn't believe how lame and incomplete the answers were. It was really bad. Even I could have give much more thorough and accurate information and I've only been keeping backyard poultry for two years...........somewhat obsessed about it mind you.

Anyways, good morning everyone. Going to let my birds out.