I have an EE pullet with a severe case of crossbeak. She seemed to be eating fine and doing well with no intervention from me other than a deep bowl to eat from. I felt awful when, one day last week, I opened the access door for she and the other 21 she's in with, and I saw her staggering when she walked down the ramp. I rushed in & picked her up to examine her and realized immediately that she was VERY VERY thin. I mixed up some baby bird handfeeding formula & fed her 3 times that day; she seemed to regain some strength.
Then, the following day (which was 5 days ago), I decided I'd try to trim her beak and see if that was the issue (after searching on BYC to see how this is done). I used a dog toenail clipper and had stiptic (sp?) powder on hand, and trimmed a tiny bit....it didn't look to be enough, so I trimmed more, and hit tissue. ARGH! It bled, so I dumped some powder in my hand and pushed it onto the bloody tip (queasy time for me....). Bleeding stopped. I then trimmed just a teensy bit from the bottom beak, as it is very, very long.
She seemed down the rest of the day (maybe in pain from me trimming too much?), so I continued handfeeding with a syringe for 2 more days. By then, she was eating really well, and I was SO relieved!
My question is: are chicken beaks like dog toenails? I know with dog toenails that if you trim & hit the vein, if you give it a couple of days, the vein will have "pulled back" and you can trim a bit more, eventually getting it shorter & shorter? If this is the case with chicken beaks, I'd like to keep trying to trim more back, as it's still quite hooked over. But, I don't want to do this if I'd hit blood again and cause her pain.
I did see a post where someone takes their chicken into a poultry vet and get the beak trimmed/cauterized so they can go shorter. This seems a bit drastic, but if it's the best option for this pullet, I'll go that route (if I can afford it). Thanks for your feedback!!!
Then, the following day (which was 5 days ago), I decided I'd try to trim her beak and see if that was the issue (after searching on BYC to see how this is done). I used a dog toenail clipper and had stiptic (sp?) powder on hand, and trimmed a tiny bit....it didn't look to be enough, so I trimmed more, and hit tissue. ARGH! It bled, so I dumped some powder in my hand and pushed it onto the bloody tip (queasy time for me....). Bleeding stopped. I then trimmed just a teensy bit from the bottom beak, as it is very, very long.
She seemed down the rest of the day (maybe in pain from me trimming too much?), so I continued handfeeding with a syringe for 2 more days. By then, she was eating really well, and I was SO relieved!
My question is: are chicken beaks like dog toenails? I know with dog toenails that if you trim & hit the vein, if you give it a couple of days, the vein will have "pulled back" and you can trim a bit more, eventually getting it shorter & shorter? If this is the case with chicken beaks, I'd like to keep trying to trim more back, as it's still quite hooked over. But, I don't want to do this if I'd hit blood again and cause her pain.
I did see a post where someone takes their chicken into a poultry vet and get the beak trimmed/cauterized so they can go shorter. This seems a bit drastic, but if it's the best option for this pullet, I'll go that route (if I can afford it). Thanks for your feedback!!!
