Chick hatched with no eyes and a cross beak

[Thedogsbark]

I woke up to a chick that had hatched with no eyes and a cross beak. I have another chick that is around seven weeks that is blind, but has both eyes. I have never had a chick with cross beak before, and have no had my blind girl for too long. How can I better care for this little chick?

 

[BlueBaby]

There must be something wrong in the parent's gene's. I would stop breeding them.

 

[MissChick@dee]

Think it all the way though. Caring for a blind bird would be extremely challenging. Caring for a blind cross beaked bird would be epitome of raising a special needs bird. What quality of life would it ever have? The commitment on your end would be
Never ending. What quality of life would you have?
For some reason sometimes Mother Nature doesn’t get it quite right. I’m sorry your chick developed improperly. It’s very sad. I’m sorry you’re in this situation. Personally I would not keep the chick. I would show mercy and kindly euthanize him. Think it all the way through. So sorry

 

[BlueBaby]

Think it all the way though. Caring for a blind bird would be extremely challenging. Caring for a blind cross beaked bird would be epitome of raising a special needs bird. What quality of life would it ever have? The commitment on your end would be
Never ending. What quality of life would you have?
For some reason sometimes Mother Nature doesn’t get it quite right. I’m sorry your chick developed improperly. It’s very sad. I’m sorry you’re in this situation. Personally I would not keep the chick. I would show mercy and kindly euthanize him. Think it all the way through. So sorry

I agree. Euthanizing both of those 2 chick's would be what I would do. I would also find out what hen and roo was producing the defective chicks.

 

[ChickNanny13]

 

[Abriana]

I have heard of blind chickens living very happy lives. They need a seeing buddy to help them though. They will follow the sighted bird to food and water.

 

[RoostersAreAwesome]

Here's a thread about a chicken with a similar problem: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/my-one-eyed-cross-beaked-broiler.1279356/

 

[Redhead Rae]

Sadly, I think the best option is to cull the two chicks and figure out which parents are involved and remove them from the breeding pool.

 

[Thedogsbark]

At this point I am not quite sure what I am going to do. It is a hard decision either way. She is still alive at this point and has two siblings that are perfectly normal. I have pinpointed the hen that she came from. It was either my Millie D'uccle that is missing half of a toe, or my D'uccle mix that has nothing physically wrong with her. I just don't understand how missing half of a toe can produce no eyes and a cross beak. Four chicks from either of these hens hatched on Christmas under a broody hen and are all four perfectly normal and healthy. However I will not be hatching eggs from either of these ladies ever again.

As for the blind chick that is older, she did not come from any of my chickens. She was gotten from Atwoods because we thought she was a Silkie. We only recently discovered that she is blind, and she gets on well. I have no intentions of culling her. The other chicks she is with lead her to food and water, and I have plans of keeping her inside with one or two of the other chicks rather than putting her with the entire flock.

 

[StephanieRose44]

Unless a different type of situation occurs. Maybe you believe your meant to care for this bird, your meant to give him a happy life. That’s the way I felt for a chick I had born as a”special needs bird” and I decided that it wasn’t her fault I looked into her eyes (got really mushy ) and told her not to worry.