The Underbelly of the Chicken World

* I try and keep this blog as PG as possible, so I will not post photo's here of events that transpired, but a word of caution...there is descriptive carnage in following post.

I awoke with a start this morning.  There was some gruesome sounding squawking going on in the coop. There I found one of our 2-month-old-babies (Daisy, the Buff Orpington) with it's head in a hole (not unlike an ostrich) breathing deeply but otherwise not moving. My heart sank, I gently lifted her to my chest and quickly saw that the feathers and skin had been pulled back from her neck. She was horrifically mauled by her own kind. The older ones have been pushing the younger ones around some, but they must have cornered her and really went for it. Things were pretty heated a few weeks ago, but I was under the impression that they had worked things out. Thankfully I have my most knowledgeable chicken friend on speed dial and frantically woke her from her sleep shortly after 7am. She confirmed that I should separate her from all others, gently clean wound, medicate with Neosporen and let her rest in the quiet garage with the heat lamp.
Daisy has been eating, drinking, pooping, and chirping so I think she'll make it, but oh, I do not want to go through that again. I will take more precautions next round of chicks, and have already altered the coop so I can manage the two flocks easier. We were all pretty shaken, but it's a bit of a reality check; they are animals, they have instinct and no amount of anthropomorphising on our part changes them.