Hello, my second topic to this forum, which I quite enjoy. You're a thoughtful group. I raised chickens as a child, and now once again with my own children I have a dozen layers. I noticed this winter (Pennsylvania, USA) that they couldn't forage much so they relied on commercial food, supplemented with our leftover meat bones and vegetable scraps. It did not supply enough proteins, as they started going for each others hind feathers (a source of proteins). I confirmed this diagnosis with a retired chicken farmer. It started getting vicious. I examined the commercial feed more closely, and noticed that the protein was completely soy based!(not so back in the 50's). You can fool a human, but you can't fool chickens. They want meat proteins. I switched feeds, but with spring upon us, I won't know until next winter if this was the problem. They absolutely prefer any dead animal or meat scraps over any other food. Your grocery-store chicken is likely raised in isolation (no cannibalism possible), so a fat, corn-fed bird is not a problem to produce. From my experience there is a huge taste difference between free-range and 'factory' birds. My advice - eat free range, avoid the factory fed facsimile. Sorry for the long-wind. It's the idiot-savant in me. -Lou Huis