Chickens are omnivores. They will eat anything they can get their beaks on. I saw them eat mice, dead rats, their own eggs, other chickens.
Chickens also have a very brutal pecking order. The chickens on the lower end of that order will get bullied pretty bad and lose feathers. Once they draw blood the other chickens my join in and peck the wounded chicken and break away pieces of it or even kill it.
This is the worst if the chickens are stressed but it happens even in chickens that are living in good conditions. One of the better way to counter it is to have a rooster with the chickens as the rooster will reprimand the bullies and break any fights between hens. A lot of chicken farmers don’t want to do that though because roosters will fight each other to death if you put multiple in the same enclosure and in the case of egg laying chickens they don’t lay eggs and will mate with the chickens which makes them lay fertilized eggs.
Chickens are omnivores. They will eat anything they can get their beaks on. I saw them eat mice, dead rats, their own eggs, other chickens.
Chickens also have a very brutal pecking order. The chickens on the lower end of that order will get bullied pretty bad and lose feathers. Once they draw blood the other chickens my join in and peck the wounded chicken and break away pieces of it or even kill it.
This is the worst if the chickens are stressed but it happens even in chickens that are living in good conditions. One of the better way to counter it is to have a rooster with the chickens as the rooster will reprimand the bullies and break any fights between hens. A lot of chicken farmers don’t want to do that though because roosters will fight each other to death if you put multiple in the same enclosure and in the case of egg laying chickens they don’t lay eggs and will mate with the chickens which makes them lay fertilized eggs.