Controlling Poultry Cannibalism

This is one of the more common field problems encountered by poultry farmers worldwide, and from actual experience, a farmer can see it affect his flock from a few birds to intolerable levels whereby he can see birds killing each other on a daily basis. It is really disheartening esp. if one has spent a lot already on his flock just to find out that they are dying crazy uncontrollably. What I've seen so far as the top 3 common causes are:

a. Genetic predisposition, either caused by natural aggressiveness of the breed or man-made, caused inadvertently by breeding companies in pursuit of finding the "competitive edge" in poultry genetics. I am really appalled by this man-made cause because primary breeding companies as well as poultry schools would always say that poultry genetics run several years of research and testing before they release any new breeds in the market. They will say it as if it is a guarantee, but, by no means not! I have seen it firsthand that a breeding company spoils their brands on national and international scale after coming out with supposedly better quality birds only to find out that these birds are too aggressive and delicate that a slight mistake in poultry management (or even none at all!), you will suddenly see your birds killing each other. I have reached this conclusion several times before when I see that a new breed or variant of a breed comes out in the market and within a year, numerous farmers complain about cannibalism. In return commercial hatcheries are beleaguered by these complaints and do not know how to respond only to find out that the primary breeder source has tumbled in its breeding program and has scrapped the purported variant!

b. Feed nutrition inadequacy- this is an old school reasoning that probably the salt level in the formulation is low resulting in the birds looking around the flock aggressively in pursuit of the inadequate element. This might be true but in my experience, I see the birds having diarrhea problems in the beginning making them pick on their cloaca, or if not, the other birds picking on each others' cloaca! Once pecked, the cloaca swells and then the redness makes every bird crazy inside the pen and will not stop until the poor birds get degutted:->! Seriously, it would seem to me that really it starts with formula imbalance, creating some diarrhea problem and developing into a behavioral thing inside the affected flocks.

c. Mismanagement - usually due to poor spacing and lighting. As what I've said in my 1st technical tid-bit in my website, birds are like humans just trying to survive based on what is given or afforded them. If the pen spacing is so scarce, the bullies will come out of the pecking order and start killing the runts. In the same manner, the smaller birds are in the receiving end in cases of poor lighting, poor pen cleanliness, excessive heating, etc.

To control cannibalism, one has to develop an eye on the above mentioned causes because once the behavior has developed within the flock, it is hard to eradicate it esp. if the cause is the breed itself. If the cause is no. 2 or 3, the earlier the farmer sees them and starts correcting the cause, the better. Some of the control measures I've seen are: 1. continuous segregation of both the pecker and the pecked, 2. lowering light intensity (but be careful in doing this on layers/breeders), 3. placing diversionary tactics inside pens like red-colored strings or toys, 4. immediate treatment of pecked area with something that will repulse the pecker (some even put hot peppers on the wound!, others use pine tar), 5. placement of eye covers or blinders (usually done in gamebirds), 6. lowering of temperature. In short, be attentive to your flocks' needs!

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