When to cull...crossed beak** UPDATE**

[Wynette]

I've got an Ameraucana with a severe crossbeak - looks much like yours, and lurkys. She never did grow as big as her hatch mates; she's still quite small. But, she's probably 10 months old now, and she actually laid a few eggs for me last week! 3, to be exact. I'd never have thought they were from her, but I saw her lay them. And, they were good sized (1.75, 1.80, 1.80) for a bird that small. I felt badly for her! She hasn't laid since then, though. I don't expect that she'll ever be a good layer; in fact, I really wasn't expecting her to ever lay.

I do take her to a poultry vet once every 2 months for a break trim. I began that when she was a couple months old. I'd come home from work one day, and she was staggering around the run...I picked her up to examine her, and discovered she'd lost a LOT of weight. I felt so awful about it! I immediately began hand feeding her with a syrings, and within 2 days she seemed back to normal. That's when I took her to the vet and began the trimmings. Yep, I put $ into her (vet charges $18 a trim), but she's a sweetheart of a bird, so it's worth it, to me.

 

[Moriah]

I find it interesting that some of you have started referring to this chick as a "her". I have no clue about gender, I have some guesses on some of them, mostly those who are already developing a comb at 4 1/2 weeks old, I am thinking are male, and one tried to crow not sure which. If in the EE lot the males start growing their combs first...then I have a good idea as to which is which.

This particular chick is in fact an EE, sold as an araucana by Mc Murray hatchery. I have 24 other EE's and one of which breed I am not sure of. (cochin or silkie possibly).

Edited to add: going to the vet tomorrow AM, $10 for beak trimming, I want to see if trimming the top from being so long helps. DH as it turns out has an afinity for this little one and wants to try to help it since it seems as though many of you have success stories with crossed beaks. It will also give me a chance to get an opinion from the vet.

 

[Cetawin]

That is an excellent idea. A small price to pay to get an expert opinion. Good luck with her.

 

[crzychicken]

My EE at 7 weeks got a crossed beak and someone told me to give her Vitamins so I did, 2 weeks later her beak was fine back to normal and still is at 17 weeks.

 

[Moriah]

what sort of vitamin and how did you give it?

 

[CarolsCritters]

After hatching 30 Ameraucana chicks in an incubator I ended up with 2 crossed beaked birds. One has a severely crossed beak, she/he is about 4 weeks old now and I keep her in a cage on our back porch with her best friend. I keep their cage by the window so I can watch her during the day and keep an eye on her behavior and feeding habits/needs. I have found so far that the best and easiest way to feed her is to put crumbles in a deeper dish (about 2 inches for now), and I wet the crumbles enough to make lumpy mash. I found that it quickly gets hard, so I make it a little watery at first. Both birds love it, although it's very messy, especially with a crossed beak throwing it around. I have to replace it at least once more during the day, and I check her crop at least twice per day to make sure she's had enough to eat. Although she's not quite as big as her counterpart, she seems to be very happy, and I think she is cute as a button with a unique personality! It's almost like she's making a funny face.

The other chick is about 8 weeks old now and seems to be keeping up with her coop buds as long as I keep a supply of crumbles available. A couple of days ago I added a deeper stainless pet dish that hangs on the coop wire, that way she can have a separate supply. I also have observed that whatever treats are given (i.e. oatmeal, fresh hay, scratch) should be thrown into the sand/dirt in the run area so she can scoop it up easier.

Since I am not able to keep all 30 babies I have chosen only 6 to keep, and 2 of them are crossed beaks. I am sure it will be worth the extra effort, and they will certainly be a topic of conversation for visitors! I would be interested in hearing what vitamins would help. Happy to post a photo if I knew how! Oh, and I do plan on investigating the filing idea as well. Good luck and keep us posted

 

[redhen]

i think my White Rock.."Pearl"..had a slight case of cross beak when she was a chick(about 8 weeks old)... i noticed she was getting weak..and when i seperated her to watch her..i noticed that she couldnt use her beak properly..she would try to grab the food and couldnt seem to "catch" it in her beak..i started to give her a soft food mash...and some poly-vis-sol vitamins... and i trimmed/filed her top beak a couple of times...before i noticed that she could eat correctly again..now shes about 20 weeks old..and eats like a pig!..

..
edited to add:..i fed her in a shallow/flat type dish with a small lip on it..it seemed to help her grab the food..

 

[crzychicken]

Avian charge 2000 Is what worked for me. Rootbeer is her name and her beak was off about 1/8 to a 1/4 of an inch top over the bottom
and in two weeks it was fine not 100% sure if it was that stuff, but that is what i was told to give her.

 

[Moriah]

We took Sammy (Davis Jr) to the vet this morning. His first reaction was interesting and doubtful that there was much that could be done. He did trim the top beak (not a fun experience to watch) and advised us to keep sammy separate from the others because of the bleeding that had happened, it got on the feathers. He also said we can hand feed for the time being. over the next few days we will watch and see. We are also tyring a deeper food dish to see if that helps.

I did "force feed" it yesterday, by opening the beak and putting food in. Definitely didn't like that and squawked like nobodies business.

Personally I don't like having to separate the little one from the others, but I don't think it is worth it to have any of the others start pecking.


ETA: Sammy started bleeding a bit again, but seems that we got it stopped. After running to the store I checked too see how things went while gone, no signs of bleeding again and lo and behold sammy's crop was FULL, not quite hard but very full. YAY, lets hope it works still

 

[skand]

Hope all goes well with Sammy. Fortunatly for us, we haven't gotten any cross-beak problems with our birds. Glad to know if we ever do, there will deffinatly be people to care on here.