Beak Trimming?

[killeengreen]

We have a couple of hens that have longer lower beaks. It doesn't seem to affect their daily lives, they are healthy, happy etc. Should we be trimming the lower beak?

 

[Shadrach]

We have a couple of hens that have longer lower beaks. It doesn't seem to affect their daily lives, they are healthy, happy etc. Should we be trimming the lower beak? View attachment 1809207

No.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166494/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-welfarediv/8FC9E87C0602D759055AC2003DB0EC0A#
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159111003285

 

[SurferchickinSB]

We have a couple of hens that have longer lower beaks. It doesn't seem to affect their daily lives, they are healthy, happy etc. Should we be trimming the lower beak? View attachment 1809207

I would just leave it, if it is not affecting them. It sort of looks like the top of that ones beak was cut off.

 

[killeengreen]

No.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166494/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-welfarediv/8FC9E87C0602D759055AC2003DB0EC0A#
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159111003285

Thanks for the links!

 

[killeengreen]

I would just leave it, if it is not affecting them. It sort of looks like the top of that ones beak was cut off.

Yes it does look like that, although they were like that when we got them (about 6 weeks ago).

 

[SurferchickinSB]

Yes it does look like that, although they were like that when we got them (about 6 weeks ago).

Well, it looks like the top beak has been trimmed, overly trimmed. Sometimes people do that if they are kept in really crowded conditions to prevent them from picking at each other.

 

[Henriettamom919]

No.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1166494/
https://www.cambridge.org/core/jour...-welfarediv/8FC9E87C0602D759055AC2003DB0EC0A#
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0168159111003285

I couldn't agree more. This information was really eye opening for me (not that I've had cause to trim.) I sort of view it like declawing a cat; unnecessary in 99% of cases and potentially far more harm than good for the animal.

 

[Biddybot]

You got this bird as a laying adult hen, yes? I ask because she looks like a typical commercial hen whose beak was clipped when she was a chick. Clipped beaks usually grow back some and the chicks whose upper mandibles were clipped back a touch too much will wind up with a beak like your bird has...a shortened upper mandible plus a protruding lower full-length mandible. If your hen's out running around and foraging, she's likely naturally keeping her lower mandible as short as it's ever going to be and trying to trim it back any further may well mean cutting into live tissue. Best left alone if she's doing fine. If she can pick up single scratch grains off the ground--grains of oats, wheat, barley, etc--then she's absolutely fine. I've got several hens like this, whose beaks grew back looking slightly abnormal to varying degrees, and all came to me as clipped-beak chicks.

 

[killeengreen]

You got this bird as a laying adult hen, yes? I ask because she looks like a typical commercial hen whose beak was clipped when she was a chick. Clipped beaks usually grow back some and the chicks whose upper mandibles were clipped back a touch too much will wind up with a beak like your bird has...a shortened upper mandible plus a protruding lower full-length mandible. If your hen's out running around and foraging, she's likely naturally keeping her lower mandible as short as it's ever going to be and trying to trim it back any further may well mean cutting into live tissue. Best left alone if she's doing fine. If she can pick up single scratch grains off the ground--grains of oats, wheat, barley, etc--then she's absolutely fine. I've got several hens like this, whose beaks grew back looking slightly abnormal to varying degrees, and all came to me as clipped-beak chicks.

Yes, we got them at about 18 weeks (point of lay). I suspect they were from a commercial farm but I don't know for sure (we got them through a friend that was picking up about 6 dozen hens for themselves). She is healthy, laying nice eggs etc, so we'll just keep an eye to make sure she stays that way. Thank you.