Advice on trimming crossbeak

[Wingstem]

Thanks for all the great guidance. I have 3 week old EE that I just noticed may be developing a cross. Right now ther is just a little gap and no cross but I may trim and do PT on her in hopes of getting ahead of it. Thanks again

Glad to help! Sounds like a good plan. It's really hard to know just how much a beak can change as the chick grows, but there are definitely some who remain very mild. I hope that's the case for you!

If it's only a gap, it is possible that it just needs trimming or sometimes it improves as they grow. I had a cockerel who had a gap between the upper and lower beak where the curvature didn't meet up right. It improved on its own and disappeared as he got older.

Do you have any photos? Are you able to move it into the proper closed position?

 

[Wingstem]

This is impressive, I have two crossbeaks although their cases are much more severe. Also they're fully grown, is it possible to still try physical therapy with them? They're fine with me handling their beak considering that I trim them, they also eat fine so I never really considered therapy but maybe it would be worth trying.

This is the first crossbeak I've managed, I have no experience with crossbeak in older chickens, sorry! But... I don't see any harm in trying. I think the best test is if gentle manipulation can move the beak into or closer to the correct position. If I had a mature chicken, I wouldn't hesitate to try. The main thing for me, would be if it's something I can do without too much stress. My little chick falls asleep during physical therapy... it's our bonding time.

The thing that really drove me to try, was the many beautiful but ultimately sad stories, many here on BYC, of people caring for their dear crossbeaks and the struggles that resulted from worsening deformity. In many cases it cut life short. Looking at my 10 day old chick (at the time) and knowing that it might be the same for her drove me to research... and now to hope for improvement.

Physical therapy (and or taping) can help improve proper muscle function and possibly improve whole beak function... at least that's the basic theory I'm working with here. The uncertainty in this all comes from the fact that we're dealing with an underlying skeletal deformity... and so it's hard to know what kind of results are possible and if they are lasting. I hope to find out!