Cross Beak question

[Mybackyardpeepers]

Hi. I have a cross beak silkie and feeding a wet mash from her food a couple times a day will help. Please be VERY careful cutting that beak with snippers! Deep dish for feed (dry) and water are helpful.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Will a chicken with cross beak ever be a productive egg layer or am I just trying to keep it alive at this point?

Really depends on how bad the crossbeak gets and how successful you are at keeping her fed and hydrated. I have one bird with a relatively mild case of crossbeak and she's been laying as reliably as my other pullets, although she's a smaller bird. I try to stay on top of keeping her beak trimmed and evened up (it wears unevenly as you can imagine, in addition to overgrowing at the tip). I feed both fermented feed and pellets, and she can use a horizontal nipple waterer, though it was a bigger struggle for her to figure it out.

 

[sealer39]

I use horizontal nipple waterers as well and she does fine with it also. She just wasn’t able to get enough of the crumbles that she needed. I’ll keep all the chicks fed well with FF from now on.

 

[Fintechie]

Wow! you'd done some amazing work!

 

[Fintechie]

I have an Easter Egger with cross beak. Somewhere I read it's common for that breed (1:100?). The cross beak was spotted about 3-4 weeks old. We have deep dishes for food and water all the time. But she is pretty much eating all day long, and grows to the normal size, or even slightly bigger than her other EE sisters. Approaching to 7 months old, she hasn't started to lay egg - from the batch of six EE, she is one of three haven't. She is the one being picked on, but picked on my dear RIR... And she kicked out half of the food - a moist mix of feed and soybean residual from soymilk. Sigh... But the others picked up afterwards, for most of it. Quiet mixed feeling towards her.

 

[Fintechie]

Here is how her beak looks like

 

[DuckWhisperer06]

Wow! you'd done some amazing work!

Oh no, that isn’t my video, just one that I thought would help.

 

[rosemarythyme]

Here is how her beak looks like

Just curious if you've tried trimming back the overhang on the upper beak to see if that helps her feed? Not the worst crossbeak I've seen but definitely noticeable.

 

[Mybackyardpeepers]

Here is how her beak looks like

I use a drum roll tool on mine, I just took in a second young cross beak. She will appreciate having that trimmed back too.

 

[Fintechie]

Just curious if you've tried trimming back the overhang on the upper beak to see if that helps her feed? Not the worst crossbeak I've seen but definitely noticeable.

She is very sensitive and doesn't like to get handled or petted, maybe because of being picked on. We haven't done anything on her beak. How to tell what part is okay to trim vs. the others might have blood vessel? I guess similar to our finger nails?