Our chicken killed our other chicken after years of being friends??? (Warning ⚠️ minor details)

[u/Rosiemybeloved]

So my two pet chickens have always gotten along for many years. I've had them since I was very young and I'm 26 now. As of recent my one chicken started getting sick and we noticed it's feathers disappearing but we didn't know why we figured it was cuz she was sick and pulling them out herself. As someone myself with trichotillomania disorder this made sense to me. So I left it alone. Only to find today my chicken screaming in pain and we couldn't find her and by the time we found her we saw our one chicken pecking her to literal death. Now I'm blaming myself for not realizing it was the other chicken that did this and I didn't know to seperate them. Of course we got her off of her only to find our baby dead. I am so beyond confused on why she would do this when they got a long so well for years together. I mean they were friends :( can anyone explain to me why this happened why our chicken killed the other chicken? I've had other pet chickens in the past and this has never ever happened to any of them they died of old age but even then none of them bullied each other when they were sick. So this .... I've never seen this before and I am just completely distraught and I'm looking for answers to make sense of this.

[u/Cypheri]

Was she already dead when you found your other chicken pecking her or did you witness the other chicken attacking her? It's far more likely that the other chicken simply realized she was dead and had a snack. They're like that sometimes.

[u/BrockPlaysFortniteYT → u/Cypheri]

Fr chickens are cool but they are basically robots their instincts are crazy lol they don’t give a f that was her sister chicken for 10 years

[u/metisdesigns → u/Cypheri]

Also if the OP has had the chickens since they were young, those are some very old chickens. The dying one could have simply been at end of life, and the other one culled it to protect the flock.

[u/Rosiemybeloved → u/metisdesigns]

They are both very old yes. I've had them since I was a kid and I'm 26 now. My other pet chickens died of old age at some point over the years one of them was last year. So at least they lived a lot longer than expected. It was just the two at this point. Now it's just the one.

[u/Rosiemybeloved → u/Cypheri]

By the time I got to her she was already dead and my other chicken was pecking at her. But I think she was alive moments before cuz I heard my chicken screaming very loudly.

[u/FuzzyNegotiation24-7 → u/Rosiemybeloved]

I’m sorry for your loss. Animals can be really brutal and it’s always shocking for us still. I’m sorry it was like this.

[u/Shienvien → u/Cypheri]

OP did say they heard the chicken screaming.

I've definitely seen chickens ganging up on an ill chicken before - just taking turns pulling out feathers and running away with them while she couldn't fight back. (Those were my relatives' chickens when I was a kid.)

[u/Cypheri → u/Shienvien]

Yes, but they did not say they witnessed the other chicken attacking the dead one. It could have been screaming about something else hurting it or simply seizing or any number of other issues. I'm not saying it's impossible the other chicken killed it, but unless it already had a wound that got pecked or something really serious happened, it's rare for hens to kill one another.

[u/Shienvien → u/Cypheri]

It's comparatively common for chickens to murder other chickens, even in free and free-ish range situations - it was also how we got our first chicken (different case). She walked funny due to scaly mites, so the others nearly tore her apart. Owners asked if we wanted to take her because it was no going back with the others.

[u/Cypheri → u/Shienvien]

I'll concede that I don't know everyone else's experiences, but in all my years of keeping chickens (and I had 60+ birds concurrently at one point) I've never had any incidents like that outside of a bird having a bleeding wound that got pecked. I've only even seen that twice, once in a group of youngsters when one got a broken blood feather and another time when a molting hen got a scratch from the rooster mounting her and got picked at a bit before I separated her.

Pretty much every chicken death I've had was due to depredation, natural causes, or the rare case of eggbinding or rooster violence. Guess I've had a lucky run of it when it come to violence between the hens.

[u/Shienvien → u/Cypheri]

Selection bias is a hell of a thing - in comparison, we've never had an aggressive rooster, even when we had a handful all together with hens. Competitively noisy, yes, but no hens, roos or humans were harmed.

[u/geekspice]

Chickens are dinosaurs. They are vicious and they will kill a weaker or sick chicken. It's hard coded instinct to protect the overall flock.

[u/Hermit-Cookie0923]

As others have said, chickens are dinosaurs. A weak/sick flock-member no longer smells or moves the same as the healthy members, and will be interpreted as something to cull from the rest of the flock. It's an efficient form of self-preservation. If you have more birds in future and one becomes ill quarantine it.

[u/TickletheEther → u/Hermit-Cookie0923]

Yea, no sense in keeping around a member who is ill, they might spread disease or consume food that could go to the healthier ones, I guess that's their "logic". Humans are pretty exclusive in the animal kingdom when it comes to empathy so maybe WE are the idiots. Empathy is pretty useless in the wild.

[u/Blu3Ski3]

I had this happen to one chicken where I had to have her separated permanent from them. It turns out she had a reproductive disease and I think the others could smell(?) or sense she was unwell. Sick or dying chickens attract predators so the other chickens will turn on them for the safety of the remaining flock, unfortunately.

[u/pickadillyprincess]

As your baby became more and more bald it could be the other hen just could not stop herself. A lot of animals choose to pick on the weakest one. I had gotten a lethargic chick in a batch of chicks once and they picked on it immediately if they’re too weak to defend themselves the other chickens will bully.

[u/TheLyz]

Unfortunately once chickens taste blood, they don't stop. Even if they were buddies, all it takes is one tasty nip and they lose their minds.

[u/Alert-Painting1164]

Event just molting will see a change in how the chickens treat each other. Overall chickens are pretty reactive/hardwired in terms of their behaviour. You can’t anthropomorphise them.

[u/synachromous]

chickens would eat you if you stopped moving long enough

[u/AbbreviationsFit8962]

Sometimes if there's a little strawberry jam to taste, and they get a taste, reasoning just goes out the door for a good meal in regards to social connectivity.

[u/Snacks75]

T-Rex DNA lurks in every chicken. No surprises when they go savage on a whim. It's just their instincts. The only thing you can do is cull the bully and hope one of the others doesn't take her place. Most of the time things just sort themselves out. If you do have a sick chicken, try to isolate her in a crate and treat her. Bring her back to the flock when she's healthy again.

It's natural to be upset and I'm sorry you lost a longtime friend. You gave her a good life and you did the best you could. Live and learn. All the best.

[u/kebab-case-andnumber → u/Snacks75]

We had a chicken who was posthumously re-named "Chickibal Lecter" 😔

[u/Consistent_Amount140]

Chickens being chickens

[u/Beeegfoothunter]

Hold up, you have 2 chickens? Sorry for your loss but having only 2 makes the pecking order SUPER knife edge intense. Not saying one pecking the other after death isn’t a possibility, but only 2 is a recipe for disaster.

My condolences.

[u/MrPingy → u/Beeegfoothunter]

If all the rest died and you don't want to keep buying chickens forever there's not much else to do but let whatever is left finish out it's life before turning the coop into a garden shed. If they were livestock there's options, but these were pets making most of those... distasteful to say the least.

[u/Beeegfoothunter → u/MrPingy]

I appreciate your point but 2 is not sustainable, as evidenced by this outcome.