Crossed beak help

[art2700]

We’ve been keeping an eye on our little Easter egger since discovering her cross beak. The first picture is her at about 4 weeks when I first noticed something off with her beak. I was hoping it wouldn’t get worse but as you can see in the second picture 8 days later, it’s gotten way worse. I just gave her some water with a syringe (new of course) which went well but food not so much. I tried mixing it with water and placing it on her beak but that was a huge struggle. I’m worried about her getting enough to eat and drink. Is there anything yall recommend for this?? Is there a “wet” food I can buy her? Or even a supplement type thing I can add to the water to compensate for the lack of food?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Unfortunately it will only get worse as she grows. You can try offering water in a deeper dish as well as wet feed (simply add water to dry crumble/pellets until you get a thick paste) in a deeper dish, but if she starts struggling to feed herself and you cannot commit to tube feeding her on a schedule, she'll slowly starve.

 

[Egg Snatcher]

Agree with @rosemarythyme. It may be best to cull her

 

[FunClucks]

Unfortunately it will only get worse as she grows. You can try offering water in a deeper dish as well as wet feed (simply add water to dry crumble/pellets until you get a thick paste) in a deeper dish, but if she starts struggling to feed herself and you cannot commit to tube feeding her on a schedule, she'll slowly starve.

@art2700 unfortunately, the above from rosemarythyme is true.

This is a really bad crossbeak. IMO this is one bird that will require tube feeding to thrive. Crossbeak gets worse as they grow, and for it to be this bad this young is not a good thing, as it's just going to get worse as the bird gets older.

I've had a few crossbeaks myself. My first one I put out deep dishes of moistened feed every day for it and trough/dish waterers. The time came where it wasn't able to get enough water and/or enough food, and I didn't catch it in time, and the bird died. I wish I'd culled it humanely earlier. Since then, I either rehome with a warning about the bird's specialized medical needs, or I cull. I also stopped breeding from that parent flock - they were throwing too many cross beaks out, and it wasn't fair to the birds. It's a genetic issue.

ETA: Looks like you're a new user/poster on BYC. Sorry this is the news we have for you. There is probably an Article in the Learning Center about cross beak, and any number of posts where folks have been dealing with this issue with their birds, if you would like to read more about things. So sorry you're going through this! I wish I had better info for you about your sweet bird! This is one of the hard parts of chicken keeping.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Poor baby. She will get worse as she ages, but she's not a hopeless cause if you want to put the time into her. She'll most likely need to be tube fed, and her beak will need to be trimmed/filed every two to four weeks to stop it from getting too long.

Here's a very helpful article on caring for her with instructions on how to tube feed:

Caring For Cross Beaked And Other Special Needs Chickens Including Tube Feeding Techniques

 

[Poultrybonkers]

Had one that was bad that was culled as it wasn’t growing.then had another wasn’t to bad and this is him literally today lol

 

[Wingstem]

We’ve been keeping an eye on our little Easter egger since discovering her cross beak. The first picture is her at about 4 weeks when I first noticed something off with her beak. I was hoping it wouldn’t get worse but as you can see in the second picture 8 days later, it’s gotten way worse. I just gave her some water with a syringe (new of course) which went well but food not so much. I tried mixing it with water and placing it on her beak but that was a huge struggle. I’m worried about her getting enough to eat and drink. Is there anything yall recommend for this?? Is there a “wet” food I can buy her? Or even a supplement type thing I can add to the water to compensate for the lack of food?View attachment 4259220View attachment 4259222

Definitely not a hopeless case, but she will need management and at least some special care. I've been managing my little girl with physical therapy, beak taping and trimming as needed, she is probably a bit more severe than yours... she has a slightly twisted upper beak and parrot beak. It appears your little one may have parrot beak (short lower beak) as well.

Here's a post where I shared how I manage my girl: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/advice-on-trimming-crossbeak.1678468/#post-28879712


She went from this...




to this...


I use a deep bowl and she manages to eat dry chick crumble just fine... she's not a fan of mash at all! I also use a gallon bucket for water which allows her to dip her beak deep enough (standard chicken waterers are too shallow) to easily get water. She's doing great!

 

[art2700]

Definitely not a hopeless case, but she will need management and at least some special care. I've been managing my little girl with physical therapy, beak taping and trimming as needed, she is probably a bit more severe than yours... she has a slightly twisted upper beak and parrot beak. It appears your little one may have parrot beak (short lower beak) as well.

Here's a post where I shared how I manage my girl: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/advice-on-trimming-crossbeak.1678468/#post-28879712


She went from this...
View attachment 4259397



to this...
View attachment 4259398

I use a deep bowl and she manages to eat dry chick crumble just fine... she's not a fan of mash at all! I also use a gallon bucket for water which allows her to dip her beak deep enough (standard chicken waterers are too shallow) to easily get water. She's doing great!

Oh wow that’s awesome! I’ll have to try that. How is she doing with it now?

 

[Wingstem]

Oh wow that’s awesome! I’ll have to try that. How is she doing with it now?

She's doing very well! So far, I haven't been able to get her beak to stay fully aligned, but have been able to maintain very close with just a few millimeters of her beak tip peeking out (as shown in my last photo... although she's older now!). I think if she didn't have the parrot beak on top of cross beak, that she'd be doing fabulously.

Unfortunately for her, the continued curving of her upper beak seems to be pushing on the lower beak and not allowing full alignment. With both the long curve and her short lower beak, she has difficulty foraging again. I still have some ideas to help correct the parrot beak, but so far haven't gotten consistent results.

We lost progress when I had trouble getting the tape to stay in place and her beak was popping free, but the good news is that I've found that even when several days are missed without regular physical therapy and taping, it only takes 3-4 days of physical therapy and taping to see significant improvement and maintain correction again.


Here are a few more tips that might help you...

• If there's a gap in physical therapy and taping where beak correction has been lost, don't limit physical therapy to 15 minutes. Go as long as needed to get the muscles feeling soft and flexible, and your chick seems very comfortable. I've found it can take a least 30 minutes, but these days I don't time it at all, each day I go until she's soft and relaxed.
• Taping needs to be at least 12 hours nightly to maintain correction.
• When applying the tape, wrapping in a towel and resting my chick on her side on my lap helps keep her calmer. She seems to fuss more if I sit her upright on my lap and tends to try to kick out with her feet.
• If the lower beak pops out, try wrapping the tape at a steeper angle from just in front of or slightly over the nare on that side to her throat.
• Another option for taping if her beak is popping out, is to cut a thin piece of cardboard (a cereal box is perfect) in a narrow triangle that is just slightly shorter than her upper beak and just slightly narrower than the whole beak closed. Wrap the tape around the upper and lower beak once, hold the cardboard in place along the side of the beak and continue wrapping the tape. I don't like this method as much as just angling the tape towards her throat... it's hard to do with just two hands and it doesn't hold the lower beak in full alignment... but it's better than nothing if tape alone doesn't work.

I hope you'll share how it goes for your chick! And feel free to ask any questions you might have. As soon as I have a bit more time, I will put together a thread showing my chicks journey and progress.