Crooked beak.???

[Mrs. K]

As she grows, she will need more food. The beak will severely interfere with this, she will have to work much harder to meet her needs. Often times they do not live a long and healthy life. Some beaks are in a worse alignment than others. It is your bird, you will have to decide what to do.

I think that is a pretty severe misalignment.

 

[StacOHTX]

I currently have a 2 yr old bird with mild crossbeak, and I feed fermented feed in the morning, which she can eat easily. My dry feed is pellets and mine gets by okay with those (as noted, it's a mild case). She did have a hard time learning to use the nipple waterer though. I trim/maintain her beak roughly every month or so, using an emery board and a dog nail trimmer to keep any overgrowth in check. She tends to crack and chip her beak around the edge if I don't keep it whittled down.

Despite it being a little harder for her to eat and drink she's one of my most consistent layers!

Thank you! This makes me feel so much better. I have a deep dish that all chicks seem to like better than feeder. Will try the wet mash and make sure she is eating enough. I have the watering tray as well as a rent a coop water container with the bowls. I wanted to try the water nipple but they seem to like what they have.

 

[StacOHTX]

As she grows, she will need more food. The beak will severely interfere with this, she will have to work much harder to meet her needs. Often times they do not live a long and healthy life. Some beaks are in a worse alignment than others. It is your bird, you will have to decide what to do.

I think that is a pretty severe misalignment.

Thank you.

 

[Silkies for life]

It's crossbeak/scissor beak, the beak isn't aligned properly due to some deformity in the head. Usually gets worse as they get older, but you can try to help manage it by providing easy to eat food like wet feed in deeper dishes.

When you trim it, the goal isn't to fix it (you really can't) but to make it so the bird can still use its beak to some degree so it can still eat and drink. You only want to trim off around the margins of the beak - they're like cat/dog toenails, with blood vessels and nerves towards the middle that you want to avoid.

 

[HungryPenguin]

I have a 5 week silkie that bottom beak is longer than top and she now can't bite down normal. Is this normal? Seemed to happen overnight. What do I do?
Thank you!

I'm so sorry to see that, I'm with you on this. Unfortunately my Russian Orloff always had a beak just a little off kilter but now that she's 10 weeks old it just keeps moving out to the side it's very sad, but I must admit that hers was barley noticeable at two weeks and now it's kinda bad... so I'm sorry to say, but im worried your baby might have quite the scissors in a few more weeks . Let me know what ends up happening with her! Good advice from others and my only advice- my girl loves her fermented crumbles and just dribbles it all down her chin feathers so damn cute when they're a little extra special.