Last week, I found out one of my chickens, Katie, is a pecker. She bullies my other little chicks, and in one case stripped off the back feathers of Isabella (another little chick). Can chickens be evil? This one is probably borderline.
She’s had a rough life. I tried introducing her and another chick to the flock too early – they seemed fine for the week where I’d let them mingle in the yard together, but when I tried that trick about sneaking them into the coop during the evening so the chickens wake up and go “Look, another chicken! Must have always been here.” what I ended up with was one dead chicken and Katie cowering in the corner the next morning.
I took her back out and tried it again a month later and she took to the flock, but now I’m finding her continually pecking at the other chickens in the yard, driving them away from the food, and in general being a big bully.
I’ve scoured the Internet about how to treat psychologically damaged chickens…Do I take her to chicken therapy? Maybe she needs an intervention with her other chicken friends. I wonder if the feed store has drugs to keep my chicken from being a pecker? It seems like there is a lot of work involved with helping a chicken with a pecking problem become less evil.
So it could be that I’m just lazy, or due to my already high body count as I’ve worked out the care and feeding of chickens in my backyard that I’m desensitized to further chicken death, but it seems that Katie is doomed for the stew pot. I just have to figure out a way to get it past my daughter that we’re going to eat her little Katie.
Maybe we’ll have a special dinner on Sunday… “Evil Chicken Surprise”.