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I have a small backyard flock, now consisting of 8 chickens of mixed breeds, Araucana and Barred Rocks, and a mix of the two. They are less than a year old. I dont know the exact age, because I got them from a farmer with too many chickens.
I also had a Rhode Island Red and a Laced Wyandotte. They were about 4 months old.
I have had them for about 3 weeks now. They live in a nice shed with a 12X6' fenced area outside. I feed them layer mash, supplemented with veggies, fruit, and I even found a huge ant nest that I scooped out and fed to them.
3 mornings ago, I went outside to feed them, and I found that my Wyandotte was dead, and the Araucanas were eating her. Her face and throat had been ripped off.
I didnt find any evidence that the coop had been broken into by a wild animal.
The next morning, about 2 am, I heard the chickens squawking. I thought for sure something had broken in. I went out, and found my little Red was sitting there, alive, but half of her face had been ripped off. She died shortly after. All of the chickens were running around, so I dont know which one did this.
I dont know what to do! I dont know which chicken is doing this. Why would a chicken become cannibalistic like this? I have seen chickens peck each other, pull feathers, but nothing so grim like this.
If anyone has any answers or suggestions, please let me know.
Thanks!!
I was confused about them being up at night.. But last night I was waiting for something to happen.. And the Araucanas were up and moving around when I looked in on them, while the others were sleeping! Maybe its because I believe they have been severely inbred. They dont behave like normal chickens ought to.
Tonight i will set the hav-a-hart trap.
I'm thinking it's some kind of predator, a weasel, a fox, an owl, someone's cat, an opposum or raccoon even. The chickens like was said will grab each other by the scruff of the neck like a mother cat carries a kitten, and having small bantams mixed in with larger, stonger ones, their necks could get broken and be killed that way maybe, but normally if a predator like a cat is reaching in and grabbing one, tring to pull it thru the wire, it would draw blood that way which would attract the other hens to peck at the wound, causing the big wounds you saw. Could you leave a light on in the coop to discourage nocturnal animals?
I'm thinking it's some kind of predator, a weasel, a fox, an owl, someone's cat, an opposum or raccoon even. The chickens like was said will grab each other by the scruff of the neck like a mother cat carries a kitten, and having small bantams mixed in with larger, stronger ones, their necks could get broken and be killed that way maybe, but normally if a predator like a cat is reaching in and grabbing one, tring to pull it thru the wire, it would draw blood that way which would attract the other hens to peck at the wound, causing the big wounds you saw. Could you leave a light on in the coop to discourage nocturnal animals?
also I have read where feeding the pelleted diets that come in a bag can lead to more cannibalism. Maybe they scrape the chickens throats and they start liking the taste of blood? You can add a little water to the pellets as you feed them so they are crumbly instead of hard, feed cracked corn or scratch grains on the ground, etc.
I wouldn't worry too much about inbreeding in your backyard flock, I mean you are not taking them to pedigreed chicken shows, right? They eat, they sleep, they cackle, they squirt eggs out their little chicken behinds, you know? You don't need them to go to college. I loved that movie Chicken Run. Also if they are inbred, their eggs would very likely just fail to hatch.
By the way, do you have hens, or roosters? Roosters often don't get along and if you got them from a farmer with to many, I would think he would likely be getting rid of roosters not hens. Do they lay eggs? Some breeds of chickens the roosters are not easy to identify because they don't have large combs or spurs. If they fight, likely they are roosters.
I have all hens. The bantams are the aggressive ones, attacking the largers chickens. I walked out this morning to find one of the bantams locked onto a larger chicken's face, absolutely going berserk. They were spinning in circles and everytime the larger one got away, the smaller one would jump back and latch onto her face. She is now separated. I think she might find her way to the oven.
AND... i went to see the farmer that i got these chickens from.. He has a tiny farm.. but over 200 birds running around.. P.E.T.A. would probably have a fit.
Anyway, he told me he was getting rid of some of his chickens, because some of the brooding mothers were eating each others chicks.
a lot of farms get rid of the hens after the first year. They moult and stop laying eggs at this time and folks don't want the expense of feeding them until they start up laying again, it's easier to just get more "spring" chickens. Younger chickens lay more eggs too, and if you are looking at a profit margin of a few cents per egg, they are the money makers.
Large chicken farms can have tens of thousands of birds all packed into one building, so a tiny farm with 200 hundred chickens is not that horrible, just expensive. Say a chicken takes up about 2 square feet per bird, a building the size of a garage would provide a coop for 150 of them, even more if it was a high rise with several floors.
They were spinning in circles and everytime the larger one got away, the smaller one would jump back and latch onto her face. She is now separated. I think she might find her way to the oven. 
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