I'm not entirely comfortable with your assessment, if it's based only on the birds you saw, and not an examination of the farm itself.
I've raised chickens. Growing up, my parents typically got the Cornish hybrids; when on an acreage myself, I raised purelines.
In both cases, though, the chickens were truly free-range. Once they got big enough to be safe from predators (the stray raccoon, mostly) the coop door was kept open and they roamed free.
Hybrids, though, are known to have developmental problems, and some become crippled.
These poor beggars would be pecked mercilessly by the healthier chickens. And yes, they would have feathers pecked into the skin.
The injuries that you're calling cannibalism, I've seen simply when a chicken dies of natural causes and is left lying around the coop for a couple days; this happens even when the chickens are not confined.
So it may be that there is an over-crowding problem. Or it may be some other problem causing the chickens to become weaker and become victimized by their healthier companions.
The birds you saw, were they purebreds or hybrids? The purebreds tend to be thinner - especially if they're free range and allowed to be active. For a while would get a mix of chicks, until I saw the differences in behavior. The purebreds would roam around the coop, while the hybrids would park themselves in front of the feeders and gorge. They tend to be thinner, less meat and a bit tougher.
Pure bred Columbian Black. Though to be honest, given the state of them it was hard even to make out the colour.
Someone else will be going out to look at the farm and see what's really what. I did consider the possibility that the birds had been predated post mortem. However, it was the farmer himself who told me that the
entire group were in very poor condition (as regards plumage), and that they were pecking each other. Also, the dead birds themselves had been doing their share - there were black feathers in the gizzards. In addition, the carcasses were very fresh, and the farmer told me that he'd brought these two because they'd just died. He was certainly keeping good records, and I don't think he was leavng dead birds lying around.
I certainly suspect that there had been a bit of pecking going on after death - I hope so, anyway, as I wouldn't like to thing the disembowelling had happened to live birds. But the sheer extent of the damage given the very fresh carcasses was worrying. I've got testing in hand to look for underlying disease, but grossly there didn't appear to be any sign of any other disease.
Thinking about it more dispassionately, this is really a failure of the free range designation, and strictly speaking isn't directly related to organics or homoeopathy. The big problem with organic livestock husbandry is the prohibition or discouragement of the use of prophylactic or therepeutic medication. And that the content-free woo of homoeopathy is encouraged as a way of not treating the animals while pretending that you are.
However, I have no evidence that these hens were suffering from anything that required medication. So that criticism isn't really appropriate. However, free range really should be high-welfare husbandry, and hens in such systems should not be into vent-pecking.
Normally I would recommend buying free-range poultry products. However, one of the advantages of caged systems is that the birds can't physically get at each other to act out negative behavioural patterns if they feel the urge. With free range, it's harder. You have to minimise the chance of them
feeling the urge.
It may turn out that there's something fairly simple causing this problem, that can be fixed. The poultry experts will be able to tell.
Yes, the problem wasn't directly related to either the organic status or the homoeopathy. It's just that, in the light of bitter past experience, my reaction was - animals in a shocking condition? Organic? Homoeopathy? Why am I not surprised about this?
Rolfe.
I need that exploding irony meter.
