beak trimming, Good Idea?

[Intheswamp]

Sounds like you're on the right track now.

If you're going to pay extra for something get them vaccinated for mareks disease.

Best wishes!
Ed

 

[desertdarlene]

Yikes, that's scary! I might have been one to have it done thinking they were just clipping the sharp tips off like when you trim a cockatiel's beak. Glad I read this thread, hopefully, I will remember this if I decide to order chicks or am helping someone else order them.

I can see why commercial farms do it, they cram them in so close together, but not for the home farmer.

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
Yes, that is what they actually do. They don't lop off their beaks... they just trim the hooked part of the upper beak.

I've had them natural and with trimmed beaks. With trimmed beaks they can still pull feathers, but it's harder for them to draw blood by pecking at each other.

This is a properly trimmed beak, although the results vary. Many times the top beak ends up being just slightly shorter, but they don't look mutilated.

 

[True Grit]

Quote:
OMG can you imagine? At long last the highly anticipated chick arrival day comes. The post office calls you at 6am and you leap out of bed, grab a coffee for the road and drive to the post office. The smiling postal worker meets you at the back door, because of course, they aren't really open yet, and hands you a box from which you can hear the darling peeping of the little fluffy butts. You excitedly open the box slowly so they aren't startled and can't hop out and...

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Another photo I found searching around, a majority of our hens look like this:

 

[Mac in Wisco]

Quote:
That's neither here nor there. I've had backyard flocks that developed picking problems for no apparent reason and you can find numerous threads here where people are trying to figure out why their hens are picking at each other.

The worst case I had was when I had only 15 birds free ranging 24-7 in a quarter acre backyard. They only went to the coop at night, which was never locked up, and they had ample room. They had all the room they needed, were well fed, yet they loved to pick at each other. I culled the worst offenders, but in future orders sometimes I had them trimmed and sometimes not. While the trimmed ones could still pull some feathers, it wasn't as bad and they seldom drew blood on each other.

 

[CountryFried]

Quote:
Or the call comes at 640am, wakes up hubby who, by the way, has NO IDEA you've ordered 38 chicks...

He wonders why the post office is calling and why the heck it's so early, so you mumble something about chickens and he says "OMG, I thought we said no more til spring?!?! How many did you order???"

Ummm....

 

[dreamcatcherarabians]

http://www.flickr.com/photos/farmsanctuary1/2163407430/

Debeaking/trimming same thing....not for me

 

[ChickieBooBoo]

Quote:
Yes, that is what they actually do. They don't lop off their beaks... they just trim the hooked part of the upper beak.

I've had them natural and with trimmed beaks. With trimmed beaks they can still pull feathers, but it's harder for them to draw blood by pecking at each other.

This is a properly trimmed beak, although the results vary. Many times the top beak ends up being just slightly shorter, but they don't look mutilated.

http://www.wattagnet.com/uploadedIm...Poultry/Poultry_International/0810PIbeak1.gif

I got a few old layers from a commercial barn and their beaks were waay shorter then that.

 

[Beekissed]

The worst case I had was when I had only 15 birds free ranging 24-7 in a quarter acre backyard. They only went to the coop at night, which was never locked up, and they had ample room. They had all the room they needed, were well fed, yet they loved to pick at each other. I culled the worst offenders, but in future orders sometimes I had them trimmed and sometimes not. While the trimmed ones could still pull some feathers, it wasn't as bad and they seldom drew blood on each other.

Fifteen birds ranging on a quarter acre sounds a little cramped. They might have seemed to have plenty of room to roam around but I can't imagine they had much to do for long on space that small.

I can honestly say I've never had a flock that picked feathers in all these years. Nor had my mother before me.

Maybe it was the breeds you were running? Not enough quality forage?

I can't imagine any reason to deform a chicken....I'd rather just kill it outright than maim it for life.​