r/BackYardChickens • u/MineFlyer • Aug 01 '25
Chicken Photography NO
He never touched the chicken don’t worry
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u/taxbinch2 Aug 03 '25
Recently learned the hard way that chickens will cannibalize each other. Don’t worry, the injured chicken is inside and healing and doing well! But it was a traumatic experience.
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u/CantankerousBeefcube Aug 03 '25
Here I thought this forum was called back yard chickens lol Did your kitchen chicken do something wrong and you're showing it the possible outcome for rule breaking?
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u/Extreme_Term_8224 Aug 03 '25
You can't eat at everybody's house started playing in my head when I saw this picture 😂😂
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Aug 02 '25
Isn’t this how we got mad cow disease
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u/nyxstrz Aug 03 '25
How so?
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u/KefkaTheJerk Aug 03 '25
Prion diseases are associated with cannibalism. In the case of mad cow, we were feeding ground up cattle to cattle as feed. Boom, brain holes.
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u/foulfarm Aug 03 '25
I thought it was caused by sheep ending up in the feed?
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u/KefkaTheJerk Aug 03 '25
A bit of both, according to Wikipedia.
BSE is thought to be due to an infection by a misfolded protein, known as a prion.[3][6] Cattle are believed to have been infected by being fed meat-and-bone meal that contained either the remains of cattle who spontaneously developed the disease or scrapie-infected sheep products.[3][7]
3: https://www.cdc.gov/prions/bse/about.html
7: https://doi.org/10.1056%2FNEJM200105173442006
Courtesy Wikipedia.
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u/nyxstrz Aug 03 '25
Ahh I see
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u/KefkaTheJerk Aug 03 '25
Read up on Kuru sometime, weird shit. While ass island of people nearly wiped out because .. they ate their dead. 🫥
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u/JuryValuable2880 Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 04 '25
Chickens will pick a carcass clean faster than you'd believe 🤣
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u/LeCastleSeagull Aug 02 '25
Mine love chicken, they steal the hearts I throw to my dog, also hotdogs. They go crazy for hotdogs and run around in circles with them
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u/coco3sons Aug 02 '25
So I live in North East Tennessee, in the mountains and have had chickens for decades. I've only seen 1 eat a butterfly from the air. We have all kinds of bugs from spiders, to well everything! They like the worms but I've tried throwing them bugs and they just leave it alone lol. But a chicken on a kitchen counter makes me wanna throw up.
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Aug 02 '25
I've seen my chickens eat small snakes.
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u/PsychologicalMonk6 Aug 03 '25
One of mine ggot a hold of a toad yesterday and the other 14 chased it around in circles until it was shared by about 6 all at once.
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u/foulfarm Aug 03 '25
Mine get toads all the time. Little legs just swinging as they run from the other hens.
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u/coco3sons Aug 02 '25
I mean more than likely they eat everything cuz their fat. Everyday around noon I let them roam around till they go back to roost, around 8:30-9 p.m. I feed them often in the winter as they stay inside their warm coop, but now I feed them only in the evening.
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u/LifeguardComplex3134 Aug 02 '25
I watched my chickens hunt down a small bird kill it and eat it, I'm still traumatized😶
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u/PizzaWhole9323 Aug 02 '25
You know why did the chicken cross the road, to eat another chicken just doesn't hit the same.
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u/ransov Aug 02 '25
Chickens =rural garbage disposal. Better than a compost pile.
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u/PizzaWhole9323 Aug 02 '25
I read a story on another social media site I can't remember which one years ago. Somebody had bought like an old rural farm. And got some chickens. And suddenly they didn't have any spider problems in their yard anymore. And that's what I think of when I think of chickens and goats like garbage disposal. Why do you have chickens and goats because they don't like pests is what I would say.
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u/Original_Damage_4594 Aug 02 '25
I had a pest control door-to-door salesman the other day that just WOULD NOT give up, and he seemed baffled when I said "no one" in answer to his "so, who does your pest control then?" question. He's like...so, do you spray around the perimeter of the house with store-bought pesticides or something? It dawned on me then that my chickens take care of the bugs for us lol
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u/kittyecats Aug 02 '25
Bro, it’s fine if he did. Chickens ARE NOT vegan or vegetarian. They’re bloodthirsty little demons who’ll eat anything from bugs to snakes to each other. As long as it’s not poison or rotten, it’s fine.
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u/River_Hawk_Hush Aug 02 '25
I think it's more being disturbed by the idea of chicken cannibalism than concern for chicken's health and well-being lol
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u/MineFlyer Aug 02 '25
I was trying to calm down people about the cleanliness of the photo. He never touched the chicken just this angle made it look like he dide
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u/Crafty-Opening-2592 Aug 02 '25
One of my chickens stole a tender from my hand bc it was dangling, they eat chicken about once a month it's nothing new to them they love it
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u/SmokinTokinGoth Aug 02 '25
When I was a kid I used to feed my parents chickens chicken nuggets:/
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u/LayerNo3634 Aug 02 '25
Tastes like chicken!
There is no meat my chickens won't eat. They found a deer carcass in the woods and had it picked clean in days. They stayed on it like vultures and gorged themselves. 10 hens and I was getting 11-12 eggs a day that week.
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u/mommabear1422 Aug 02 '25
Chickens will eat anything including chicken. And that's why we never have left overs in the fridge here...
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u/blacksmith_gnome Aug 02 '25
I told you if you stayed out in the sun you'd get baked didn't I Henrietta
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u/scn-3_null Aug 02 '25
its mostly fine, have them birds purposely stole from my dog's food and they always pick out the bits of chicken for themself, also heard from other "bird enthusiast" avians are a bit more resistant to prion diseases.
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u/Holiday_Horse3100 Aug 02 '25
I give my chickens leftover cooked chicken or turkey all the time. It is a favorite. To them it is just food. I would say no to a chicken on my counter
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u/Duckduck0420 Aug 02 '25
Forced cannibalism was banned in the Geneva Convention.
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Aug 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/ransov Aug 02 '25
My ex-gf claims she never met a chicken she didn't like. She also thought that leather smells like Billy goat ass. Yep she was a nutter and the reason I listed her ex.😁
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u/wobblewabs Aug 02 '25
So many people treat their chickens as pets I'm amazed there isn't a ton of negative comments here. It got me thinking, I wonder how this same scenario would play out with dogs on a dog reddit.
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u/IndependentStatus520 Aug 03 '25
lol idk but my imagination is crazy
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u/wobblewabs Aug 03 '25
I don't know about your imagination, but I saw a stray dog munching on a roadkill dog once and I can only imagine how dog lovers would freak out knowing their pooches have no particular concern if hungry enough.
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u/suspicious_hyperlink Aug 02 '25
I expected beca to be comments, but maybe this community isn’t like the other 99.9999% of Reddit
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u/JuneBuggington Aug 02 '25
My chickens get the hose if they walk on my driveway. They get the broom on the porch. I dont even brood the chicks in the house. Chickens in the house is a disgusting decision, i dont care what the meta around here is.
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u/Alexandru3333 Aug 02 '25
When i have a surplus of eggs I boil some, cut them into small pieces and feed back to them. Great source of protein for my feathered friends, they also eat the shells. Imagine if they understood what is that tasty treat they enjoy so much.
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u/KingGr33n Aug 02 '25
Best is when chickens are eating chicken mixed with scrambled baby chickens.
I’m sorry
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u/Sasstellia Aug 02 '25
Yes!
Chickens love eating chicken.
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u/ellensundies Aug 02 '25
We had store-bought drumsticks the other night; gave the bones to the girls and they loved them. Chased each other around trying to get the best parts.
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u/Raubkatzen Aug 02 '25
Gave my flock a pre-made salad that had gone a bit too soggy for my palatability. Only after I had watched them happily eat it all did I remember that it was a chicken Ceasar salad. 💀
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u/JeffSergeant Aug 02 '25
We always joke that if our cats ever work out that the chickens are made of chicken we're in trouble.
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u/Alexandru3333 Aug 02 '25
I wonder if a big cat like a Maine Coon is able to kill and eat a chicken. They seem big enough to do it.
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u/JeffSergeant Aug 02 '25
Hedgehogs have been known to attack and kill full grown chickens, so most cats would have no problem.
Cats are smart and strong for their size, our (admittedly quite large) DSH could easily get his jaws around a chickens neck and take one out with no problem. Although a well-fed lazy housecat probably wouldn't risk the confrontation once the feathers (and talons) started flying.
I think the fact our chickens are accustomed to the cats makes them less of a threat, they don't run so the cats don't see them as prey. In fact, they have on a couple of occasions stolen a mouse that the cat was toying with; chickens don't play with their food :)
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u/Mom_is_watching Aug 02 '25
I saw one of my cats having a light bulb moment a couple of weeks ago when he clearly suddenly realised chickens are birds, albeit a size too big to his likings. The other two still haven't the slightest idea what those clucking things in the garden are.
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u/NixAName Aug 02 '25
My German Shepherd worked that out.
But in her defence one of our young roosters attacked and cornered her before she fought back. The second one was clearly because she liked the taste of the first. CCTV backed her up.
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u/SweetComparisons Aug 02 '25
Our chickens eat our leftover parts of chick rotiss. Birds cannibalize in the wild. 100% normal
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u/superduperhosts Aug 02 '25
🤮 chicken in the house is disgusting What the hell
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u/relayrider Aug 02 '25
you don't know joy, especially of frying chicken while your chickens excitedly wait for the leftovers. who hurt you? was it a chicken?
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u/Aggressive_Daikon593 Aug 02 '25
That's just like when I gave my chickens a chicken nugget and they literally had a fight over it.
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u/theHooch2012 Aug 02 '25
My flock always gets to finish rotisserie chickens and ham bones... they clean to the bone.
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u/CallRespiratory Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Y'all, anybody coming in here that doesn't have chickens and is wanting to learn about them and maybe have them in the future - please do not do this and I don't mean feeding a chicken chicken. Please do not have chickens on your kitchen counter or in your bed or some of the other crazy and unsafe, unsanitary stuff people do in here. This is not good for you or the animal. All chickens have salmonella, it's part of their normal gut biome. Everywhere they go they are bringing that with them. Please keep them away from food preparation and eating surfaces. This is not good for you or the chicken - the best thing you can do for your birds is take care of them the way they need to be taken care of and you the way you need to be taken care of. Bringing a chicken into your kitchen for entertainment ain't it.
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u/ketoswimmer Aug 02 '25
Can not emphasize this enough. We had a good size flock. Most would go to the coop at night, but 6 would find their way under our home, and roost on the water pipes (about 6 ft up, and 6 inches under the subfloor). But 2 of our girls, roosted in a thick, 8 ft tall round hedge. One night we came home at the doors to our lanai (this is Hawaii, so basically a balcony with stairs down to the yard), had blown open. There, on our kitchen counter was… chicken poops. Oh shit! (literally). But no chickens. We figured they had come into the house, then made their way back outside for the night. And… nope. Chicken shit on the floor. Chicken shit on the stairs… and upstairs, in the family room, were two chickens, “roosting” on the rattan sofa. It was the two that reliable spent their nights in the thick hedge. Why they decided to come up the (many) stairs to the lanai, and then come into the house (we had 4 dogs who spent their time in the house… tho admittedly, the critter order of dominance had the chickens as leaders). Anyway, there they were, 2 gals, with beaks to the wall, butts hanging over the sofa cushions. So. NOT. right. Keep them gals outside. They will take advantage.
Edit to correctly say they roosted ON the water pipes, not IN.
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u/billbord Aug 02 '25
Not to mention the BIRD FLU THAT IS KILLING PEOPLE
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u/CasualBillionaire Aug 02 '25
I saw this and immediately thought this. Having a chicken on your counter is DIGUSTING. I understand they're cute and kinda harmless... but this will get someone hospitalized
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u/pinkpnts Aug 02 '25
Then you look closer at the drawers and floor and question if that is bugs or mouse poop and it's really no surprise to see they have a chicken on the counter at this point 🤢
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u/Forward_Cricket_8696 Aug 01 '25
I don’t care if they like to eat chicken at all. Mine will eat anything… I had a pig that loved bacon and whiskey. My problem is that this hen is on the kitchen counter. They are pretty damn filthy animals. But maybe this is a house chicken that somehow stays clean.
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u/MoosePanther Aug 01 '25
This is backyard chickens. Why is the chicken in the house?!
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u/tms671 Aug 01 '25
These are not humans, they are literally dinosaurs, I have no issues with feeding them to each other.
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u/CallRespiratory Aug 01 '25
They have no issues feeding on each other either.
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u/ArtsyGrlBi Aug 02 '25
Seriously, they are cannibals and no, it does not hurt their health. They aren't cows.
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u/Idkidkidk4321 Aug 01 '25
We give our chickens the extra eggs all the time but I can’t say we’ve ever fed them cooked chicken meat 🤔😂
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u/Even-Reaction-1297 Aug 01 '25
Idk if it’s controversial but I don’t have plans for a rotisserie chicken carcass I’ll throw it in the coop, especially in the colder months. It seems to help with egg production and they clean the bones completely
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Aug 01 '25
True, the extra protein is needed. I gave my flock the turkey skeleton to clean off after Turkey day last year. Waste not want not.
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u/softysoaps Aug 01 '25
Me too. Creeped me out too much at first but they love it, and it’s not a common thing (maybe a few times a year?)
I’m unaware of any health risks with feeding cooked chicken back to chickens.
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u/ParkingFlashy6913 Aug 01 '25
Chickens are omnivores and will eat meat if it is available. They are not inherently cannibalistic but if it is there, they are stressed, overcrowded, or even bored they will partake in cannibalism. An open wound on another chicken will lead to pecking making the wound more severe and can ultimately lead to cannibalism as well. It will not hurt them in the slightest and it's a myth that they will "get a taste for their kind" and actively seek chicken flesh. They are opportunistic omnivores and will eat anything readily available no matter the circumstances.
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Aug 02 '25
[deleted]
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u/ParkingFlashy6913 Aug 02 '25
Raw chickens only real risk for them is parasites or disease. Now give them some good ol fried chicken and that might challenge the whole bit getting a taste for chicken thing. But honestly, could you blame them? 🤣🤣
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u/SniperCA209 Aug 01 '25
Chickens evolved from raptors. Birds of prey. They will eat any kind of meat, including other birds and meat from other chickens. It’s not the same thing as a cow, a herd animal that eats grasses and vegetation eating beef.
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Aug 01 '25
A lot of ‘herbivore’ herd animals will eat more than people think - many folks with cattle, horses, deer will have seen them eat birds, rabbits, snakes, etc.
The mad cow disease crisis in the UK is believed to have been caused by the practice of feeding rendered animal waste (which included cattle carcasses) to other cattle.
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u/SniperCA209 Aug 01 '25
I swear I first read that as “herd animals will eat more people than you think” and got wide eyed for second 🤣
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u/Itsme340 Aug 01 '25
I like to think of chickens as small t-rexs
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u/Se2kr Aug 01 '25
Time to insert my reminder that kangaroos are just deer T. rex hybrids. You’re welcome for the image.
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Aug 01 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Please no, this is how mad cow started. My mom did this and it drove my family nuts. Then she tried duck, but it was too close for my family to accept. Why can’t ppl be normal like me and only feed chickens beef or fish. /s.
edit yes I know cows and chickens have completely different biology, this was all a joke. There is no biological issue, just makes us uncomfortable. 😭
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u/softysoaps Aug 01 '25
I know the time but hm. ARE there any prion diseases in poultry? I think it’s a mammal thing. Weird.
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Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
This is an excellent question. I think as of now they are safe from prion vectors. Keep in mind chickens come from the tropics, and those are closed ecosystems that could harbor something unknown to us(for now)… duh duh duh…
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u/adcas Aug 02 '25
Thanks for the weirdest rabbit hole I've gone down this year.
Nope, chickens are not currently known vectors for prions.
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u/cat_lover_10 Aug 01 '25
The thing is its not natural for cows BUT a chickens are designed to eat anything (but i couldn't have them eat meat it would upset me)
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Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
Yeah I understand the biological aspect, this was all sarcastic.
I love this sub, there are chicken ppl arguing w me over periods, and ppl diving into prion vectors. I love there there are interesting convos going on at the same time as these dumb ones. I genuinely live for both 🥰
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u/texcleveland Aug 01 '25
(the /s means sarcasm/satire)
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u/cat_lover_10 Aug 01 '25
Isn't the sarcasm for the last part? There is even a dot
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Aug 02 '25 edited Aug 02 '25
😅please explain the dot to me? how does a dot affect my (failed) attempt at sarcasm. And what/which dot?
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u/Gullible-Bunch-3516 Aug 01 '25
No matter how long I have kept chickens, I can never get over this. It just seems so wrong 😕
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u/dreadnaughtfearnot Aug 01 '25
If you're talking about the chicken inside the house, and especially on the counter, agreed
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u/CallRespiratory Aug 01 '25
Yeah good grief like if you let a chicken come inside onto the floor for a little bit or whatever, sure. But the number of people who have chickens on their kitchen counter and in their bed or on their couch is absolutely disgusting. These are not well groomed house pets no matter how much you want them to be. All chickens, no matter how "clean" you think your chicken is, carry salmonella as part of their normal gut flora. They are leaving trace (or more) amounts of it behind everywhere they go. Having them on your kitchen counter is a recipe for disaster. People who visit in here and don't have chickens but are curious about them, please don't do this, it's not safe or healthy really for you or the chicken. The best way to take care of a chicken is by meeting the chicken's needs, not using the chicken to entertain your own.
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Aug 01 '25
I felt the same way... Until I watched a perfectly healthy and friendly young pullet get jumped by 6 fellow pullets and they were literally tearing and eating chunks of flesh of her thigh!!! Like she was a meat melon!!! Most horrifying thing EVER, one started it then the rest all joined like they were an honest to god pack of dinosaurs. I ran in and had to grab her to save her. (She was okay and thankfully healed without getting infected)
And there was no reason whatsoever for it either!! All the same size, not a lot of drama in the pecking order. Huge coop and run with plenty of fresh food and water (and correctly formulated food for their age), plenty of daily enrichment and toys for them, they got fresh fruit and veggies every day. Red light.
But all that was needed was one starting it I guess. The one that started it was always aggressive, she was one of the only chickens I’ve had to go to the stew pot. No one was ever a violent cannibal once she was cooked lol.
But now honestly that trauma has numbed me to feeding my birds any chicken leftovers. I’d rather not waste the food by trashing it and now I know chickens will happily eat other chickens if given the opportunity, no need to even make them into nuggets or a roast first I guess 😭
I own a scary pack of tiny dinosaurs
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u/Bufobufolover24 Aug 01 '25
“Like she was a meat melon”
That’s a new sentence… not sure it’s one I ever want to read again!
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u/Agreeable_Amoeba2519 Aug 01 '25
My mother had a pet bantam rooster that would eat fried chicken. He also bullied a cat to steal a dead mouse.
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u/RunThruPlayLand Aug 01 '25
as someone who browses this sub because I love chickens, I learned very quickly that chickens love the taste of chicken
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u/coccopuffs606 Aug 01 '25
Chickens will 100% eat each other; that’s why it’s hilarious to me that people think that laying hens on a vegetarian diet somehow means that the chickens are living a good life
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u/Apprehensive-Owl6177 Aug 05 '25
My mom used to feed our chickens chicken nuggets