Chick born Cross Beak and Blind

[h2ocutiegirl]

This is Princess. As you can see she is blind and has cross beak. She is our everything. I decided to post this because there is nothing really out there on how to take care of this type of baby chick. So to start with cross beak and being blind she had to be hand fed every couple of hours by a syringe. We ordered KayTee Exact Baby Bird Food Supplement. I recommend having this in your chicken kit at all times. It's great for even older birds. It gives them all the vitamins and nutrients they need. So back on track. She was so special to us from the day I rescued her. We got the food and mixed it with water and egg yolk (no whites, and raw). Mix all together for a good consistency like toothpaste basically. She will be eating this the rest of her life, however she has gotten really good at eating so we have now mixed in her chick starter so it is soft and fills her better. She is with 2 other chicks her same age and they snuggle and the other two help her sometimes. She will never be a regular chicken, but her sisters will help her along the way. She is now 2 months old and twice the size of the picture. She gets bathed every day and LOVES the blow dryer and so does her sisters. She learns very fast. She taught herself how to do sonar. She talks and chirps to find her way around. So with simply a little time and care she will be strong and live a full life. Also make sure with blind birds that their food and water is in the same Exact spot no matter what. You can NOT change it at all, not even an inch off. But I hope this truly helps anyone out there since there isn't much on disabled chickens. We do NOT "cull" our birds. We are for long healthy lives and give all living animals a chance no matter what. All 14 of mine have been rescued. I have lost many unfortunately, but I'll never stop trying. I love my babies very much!!!! Good luck to you all!!!!!

 

[Cindosha]

I love this!!! Your Princess is adorable. We feed our cross-beak Nutmeg with a mixture of ground layer crumbles, yogurt and water blended up in the blender and fed through a syringe with a silicone tube. I feed her this way once every couple of days. She is capable of eating regular food from the hanging feeder, we just keep the food up to the edges several times a day so she can access it. I tried putting her crumble in a deep dish but she doesn't even attempt to try and eat out of that. She does spend most of her days eating though, so I'm assuming that she really doesn't get enough to eat. If I put a treat out for them, she has a very hard time pecking at it and seems to miss the food. She still doesn't like me to pick her up for the feedings but once I have, her she seems to calm down and eats from the syringe. We both get so messy...it's so funny!!

I give her a bath afterward and wrap her in a bath towel and just sit with her for about 15-20 minutes so she can dry off. One of our other eggers will help her groom herself when I bring her back to the run. It's adorable!! It is amazing how the other birds help the ones that need it!! When I go into the coop at night to close them up, I like to pet them all and maybe pick up a bird or two to give them a snuggle. Nutmeg really doesn't like when I do this to her and will hide under the wings of a couple of the other hens. It makes me laugh so hard....

We would never cull any of our birds either!! My husband, who will tell everyone that he never wanted chickens in the first place, loves Nutmeg so much, and goes out to the coop several times a day to make sure she has access to her food...she alone has brought him around to the chicken keeping phenomenon at our house now!!

 

[h2ocutiegirl]

I love this!!! Your Princess is adorable. We feed our cross-beak Nutmeg with a mixture of ground layer crumbles, yogurt and water blended up in the blender and fed through a syringe with a silicone tube. I feed her this way once every couple of days. She is capable of eating regular food from the hanging feeder, we just keep the food up to the edges several times a day so she can access it. I tried putting her crumble in a deep dish but she doesn't even attempt to try and eat out of that. She does spend most of her days eating though, so I'm assuming that she really doesn't get enough to eat. If I put a treat out for them, she has a very hard time pecking at it and seems to miss the food. She still doesn't like me to pick her up for the feedings but once I have, her she seems to calm down and eats from the syringe. We both get so messy...it's so funny!!

I give her a bath afterward and wrap her in a bath towel and just sit with her for about 15-20 minutes so she can dry off. One of our other eggers will help her groom herself when I bring her back to the run. It's adorable!! It is amazing how the other birds help the ones that need it!! When I go into the coop at night to close them up, I like to pet them all and maybe pick up a bird or two to give them a snuggle. Nutmeg really doesn't like when I do this to her and will hide under the wings of a couple of the other hens. It makes me laugh so hard....

We would never cull any of our birds either!! My husband, who will tell everyone that he never wanted chickens in the first place, loves Nutmeg so much, and goes out to the coop several times a day to make sure she has access to her food...she alone has brought him around to the chicken keeping phenomenon at our house now!!

Omg I LOVE Nutmeg already! All my girls and my boy make me almost cry laughing every day. My boy is a little Bantam who had leg issues so when he runs it looks like he runs like a penguin. It's so funny. He has GREAT control of all of his girls and puts them to bed and everything. Princess and her sisters are my house babies, but the other 10 hens and my roo are outside. They are spoiled rotten. Until we got Princess, my husband was the same way, he now feeds them and spends time with all of them and they all just LOVE him. I get jealous sometimes lol. He checks on Princess every single chance he gets. The Pic I posted to this one is how they sleep all the time lol. I never thought I'd ever own chickens, but now I'm addicted! They are so loving and kind and just entertainment all the way around!!!!

 

[RosemaryDuck]

I noticed you mentioned the blow dryer and just wanted to pop in to give you a quick warning. Some types of blow dryers have Teflon/coatings that can be deadly to birds. They do sell ones without it that are safe though!

Best of luck to you. She's adorable and it sounds like she's very well taken care of!

 

[h2ocutiegirl]

I noticed you mentioned the blow dryer and just wanted to pop in to give you a quick warning. Some types of blow dryers have Teflon/coatings that can be deadly to birds. They do sell ones without it that are safe though!

Best of luck to you. She's adorable and it sounds like she's very well taken care of!

Oh yes I know. I made sure to get a special one just for them. Cost me a small fortune but I didn't care. They deserve the best of the best. And thank you for the advise! Didn't even think to pit that in my post. Thank you!!!

 

[Cindosha]

OMG!!! Princess!!! That picture with your husband is just adorable!!! We don’t have a rooster (but I kind of wish I did) to take care of our girls. But there are a couple of mama hens in the flock who seem to keep the others in line. I put a folding chair in my run and sit out there sometimes just to watch them. They are so curious and funny!! Here is Nutmeg hiding under Gracie’s wing the other night. They all seem very protective of her. I never thought I would love keeping chickens as much as I do. But…since this is our first year of chickenkeeping, it remains to be seen once winter comes, how I will feel about it!! hahaha!!

 

[h2ocutiegirl]

OMG NUTMEG IS ADORABLE!!!!!!!!!!

Winter isn't bad way out here in Nevada. Heat lamps or even Producer Prides coop heaters. I have both because I have multiple runs, and both are amazing. We are actually doing an oil heater in the coop outside this year to see how it warms their room. Don't know really too much but that I got one of the highest ranked ones with safety and not hot to the touch and stuff. Also where the oil is, is completely sealed off so no danger there and no chemicals are used as in propane or anything like that.

I love my girls and wouldn't trade them for the world. I prefer them over dogs or any other animal... although just rescued a hatchling gecko from the dogs water bowl yesterday morning almost dead. She's good now cause of course I had to get a tank and everything cause it's too cold right now, she would have froze... lol...

 

[Cindosha]

OMG!! a gecko in the dogs water bowl...that's a first for me!!! The research we've done said not to heat the coop, the hens will grow the feathers they need to stay warm. We have a fairly large run so I bought some reinforced plastic sheeting that I am going to wrap around most of the run for winter. We did get a heater for their waterer so I guess we will see how that goes. It can get pretty cold and snowy here in Michigan so it will be a pretty big learning curve. Hubby works from home so he is able to access the coop and run area and check on them multiple times during the day. We Shall See!!

I think its so cute that Princess has attached herself to your husband!!! He looks pretty happy about it too!!

 

[h2ocutiegirl]

Yes they are inseparable! Yeah so now I have a pet Gecko named Alice lol. It also depends on how cold and how many birds you have as well. That's GREAT that your husband has the time for that especially since it's your first year. I'm barely in my second year of chickens. I started with 3 and now have 14. Lol. My friends say I need Chicken AA. LOL!!!! My husband was out of work for almost 6 months and got really attached. He just went back to work and now can't wait to get home to HIS girls lol. I've had a lot of experiences this last year since all of mine are rescued.

 

[sarah_d]

View attachment 2891618This is Princess. As you can see she is blind and has cross beak. She is our everything. I decided to post this because there is nothing really out there on how to take care of this type of baby chick. So to start with cross beak and being blind she had to be hand fed every couple of hours by a syringe. We ordered KayTee Exact Baby Bird Food Supplement. I recommend having this in your chicken kit at all times. It's great for even older birds. It gives them all the vitamins and nutrients they need. So back on track. She was so special to us from the day I rescued her. We got the food and mixed it with water and egg yolk (no whites, and raw). Mix all together for a good consistency like toothpaste basically. She will be eating this the rest of her life, however she has gotten really good at eating so we have now mixed in her chick starter so it is soft and fills her better. She is with 2 other chicks her same age and they snuggle and the other two help her sometimes. She will never be a regular chicken, but her sisters will help her along the way. She is now 2 months old and twice the size of the picture. She gets bathed every day and LOVES the blow dryer and so does her sisters. She learns very fast. She taught herself how to do sonar. She talks and chirps to find her way around. So with simply a little time and care she will be strong and live a full life. Also make sure with blind birds that their food and water is in the same Exact spot no matter what. You can NOT change it at all, not even an inch off. But I hope this truly helps anyone out there since there isn't much on disabled chickens. We do NOT "cull" our birds. We are for long healthy lives and give all living animals a chance no matter what. All 14 of mine have been rescued. I have lost many unfortunately, but I'll never stop trying. I love my babies very much!!!! Good luck to you all!!!!!

Hello and thank you for your insight on care for a crossbeak chick. I could really use some advice from everyone on how to manage our situation. Our chick is about five weeks old and has a terrible case. Just this week she really stopped being able to eat in her own. We have tried everything from mixing the crumble with water to making a liquidy feeding paste made of egg yolk, whole fat Greek yogurt, and crumble all mixed. I’m just not sure if we’re going to be able to syringe feed her enough times a day to keep her from starving. It is such a slow and painstaking process. I was hoping we could put it in a jar lid and she would try to consume it herself, but she doesn’t even try. Please let me know any tips! Thank you.