Chicken Canabalism
What to do when you find out it's a REAL "Chick eat Chick" world....

There you are, going about your chores, whistling softly as you feed and water your new batch of fluffy chicks. You are just thinking how nice it is to be around the birds today, instead of dealing with some stressful "situation", when one of the babies catches your eye. Huddled into the far corner, it's little rear end is raw and red, there are patches of down pulled out of it's head, and it's bleeding in several places. As you treat the little guy's wounds, and set him up in a separate box from the others, you wonder what kind of animal would do this to a helpless, adorable chick.
The answer - another chick. You have the makings of a cannibal in your flock.

Though it looks as if the whole world has been picking on the little guy, cannibalism is usually started by just one or two birds. It starts out innocently enough, a chick notices a piece of something interesting stuck to it's neighbor's behind, and gives it a little peck to check it out. The other chicks are attracted, they peck, and before too long, they will have drawn blood, attracting more chicks...

But you don't have to wait until you find a seveerly injured or dead chick. Just sit quietly where you can watch them awhile. You'll begin to notice that there are some who always seem to be picking on somebody else, especially at the vents, base of tail, and the back of the head. Once those troublemakers have drawn blood, the area becomes a magnet for every other chick to pick at as well, and the victim can be severly injured or even killed quickly. As you spot the chronic picker(s), depending on their age, you may want to remove them from the flock - permanently. Quick Alliteration: Cull the cannibals, and you've cured the condition.

If the chicks are still quite young, and you can catch it before they've drawn blood, you can avoid serious injury by clipping the tip of their beaks with fingernail cutters. Clipping the tip of the beak keeps the chick from getting a grip on it's neighbor's feathers and fluff, allowing them to slip through unharmed. Also, it's not always the biggest chicks in a flock that are the culprits either, sometimes the smallest birds will be the worst. {maybe because it's easier for them to notice the vent area. }

Other things to remember:
If you notice them picking while they're still being brooded under a lamp, you can try using a red heat bulb instead of a white light. Going back to what gets them started picking in the first place, which is discovering something unusual on another chick, the red light can make such "interesting" spots less noticeable. You can also try separating them into two groups, as overcrowding leads to bored chicks, and bored chicks become pickers. Make sure your chicks have plenty of room to move freely, and don't forget to give them something to do. Give them a break in their routine; a few grass clippings or pieces of raw broccoli tossed in from time to time, corn on the cob, either raw or cooked, even a brick or a small tree branch that they can jump up on go a long way toward breaking the monotony.

And don't forget to "visit" them often. Chicks that become accustomed to people are easier to handle when they are adults - makes for a calmer, more productive flock.