Diary of a Crossbeak: Support for Special Needs Chickens and their Keepers

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Hello,
I have a cross beak polish chicken/rooster named Heyhey, he is 5 months old. He is the size of a 2 month old, he eats well but he stopped growing and his head seems to be on the smaller size. He show signs of being a chicken or a rooster. Not exactly sure what could be wrong with him any help would be appreciated
Thank you for your time
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Hi, I'm new here. I've been reading here for the last few days and when I found this thread I knew that I had to get an account.
I'm not usually one to post things, but I just had to say thank you for starting this thread. I had a cross beak EE, Dottie, a couple of years back. When she was brought home, her beak was almost normal. As she grew up it became progressively worse. When I went to the local feed store, their “Chicken Lady” told me that all I had to do was feed her out of a deep dish bowl. I stared doing that, but the other girls would push her off the bowl. So I started feeding her by sitting on the walk way and holding a blue dixie cup full of food instead. That worked well for her. I don't think she ever gave an egg and she was always under weight, but she had the best personality of all the girls. The second winter that I had her she died. I know now that she was probably malnourished and I wish that I would have had some of the advice here to help her out. So again, thank you.



So now for a funny story about why the color of the dixie cup was important in the above story. Dottie knew what color her cup was. You could walk around with any color of cup in the backyard, except blue. I'm not sure how much color chickens see, but she knew her cup one way or another.
One of the blue cups had escaped and was lying in the middle of the yard. I was standing in the kitchen watching the girls out the window when the guys who mow my lawn showed up. It was like slow motion, he bent down to pick up the cup and Dottie saw it. She came as fast as her little legs could carry her from across the yard and started doing “that” chicken jump at him. You know the one. The one that's all wings and chattering. Anyway the poor guy, it scared the heck out of him and he was yelling, “Oh my God! Oh my God!” at the top of his lungs . The other guys that were working with him were laughing and I was running out of the back door yelling “Drop the cup! Drop the cup!”. When he stopped yelling to take a breath and heard me yelling, he threw the cup a few feet away and she she followed it to where it landed. When she figured out that it was empty she came over to me for her for her treats. I always keep a bowl of scratch by the back door and had grabbed it on the run out. I apologized to the guy, but I don't think that he believed me because I was laughing so hard. It was funny as all get out. This story does not do it justice.
Sorry, that was kind of long winded, but I couldn't resist sharing that story about my cross beak. By no means was she stupid and because of all the hand feeding she was vary tame. My mother used to tease me that she was my “lap chicken”. So again, thank you for posting this thread to help promote awareness that you don't always have to euthanize a cross break chicken.
Absolutely hilarious!!!!
 
I haven't seen much on chooks with leg deformities here. We have a baby chook that was born with a leg deformity.
 

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