[princesspoultry]

  Hello,
               Something horrible happened this morning. I went to let my chickens out of the house and saw one dead in the courner with half it's face pecked off! I assume it died of old age and someother bird was curious. I'm just not sure what breed would have done that! I have many different breeds. The house is a nice size and they always have a lot of room to run around and always have plenty of food and water.  I'm thinking maybe a Red Star or a Leghorn....? I have had chickens for 5 years and have never had anyone eat another one before!  Any ideas of what breed could have done this???

[joyfull]

All breeds will peck a feeble one to death. This is why they hide an illness so well - sadly hiding any illness just means we are not aware they are ill until it is too late.
Hens are not herbivores so do like a bit of meat - but usually this is in the form of slugs, snails, worms mice and frogs.

[Thingy]

I find that when a hen dies, the other will start to canniblise it before I find it. As joyfull says, they will also bully and peck an ill hen untill it dies. From their point of view an ill bird can endanger the flock, mainly due to disease transmission or through increased visability to predators. When a chicken dies, to them it is a source of nutrition, as horrible as that sounds.

Don't worry too much about it, its just natural chicken behaviour. None of your hens are nasty

[Jeanette]

It happens don't worry about it. They don't see the dead chiken as there mate. But it is horrible and you have not got a nasty hen.