I thought I'd share this with the community. Sometimes the chickens don't go into their nests at night and they roost up in the trees, which makes for some pretty interesting nights, running around in the dark, chasing off raccoons or whatever. One night, we heard a ruckus and blasted into the backyard to rescue whatever was out there... Turned out it was a hen that we were pretty sure a raccoon had gotten a hold of. When everything quieted down, we heard her... bruising in the trees, low to the ground. My husband (Bill) found her hanging upside down and quite damaged. We brought her to the light and upon inspection, Bill decided we needed to put her down to save her from suffering. Well, I'm always trying to save something or someone, so I talked Bill into letting her rest through the night and we would see what she looked like in the morning. I wouldn't have tried except that she was perched on the table like nothing had happened... assumingly stunned.. and then she flew to the fence. SO, I was thinking, maybe she'll be ok. After having a closer look, we could see that her beak had been mostly ripped off along with a chunk of her forehead. Needless to say, I didn't sleep that night. I went through BYC searching for information about weather a chicken could live without a beak. She had just barely 2 sticks of a beak left, top and bottom. Most of the threads were doom and gloom.. which brings me to why I felt the need to post this... quite some time later. Over the next few weeks, I fed her anything mushy that she wanted.. The 2 sticks fell off and there is now no beak at all. It's kind of funny, because her tongue whips out like a snake...kinda freaky actually.... But, the point is... she is PERFECT! She eats her feed, scratches for bugs and is accepted in the flock with no issues. I just had to share this. WE almost put her down... It's been a few months and she's happy, healthy and needless to say, always goes into the nest at dusk :)
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