Crossed beak

[mandyp]

I let one of my chickens set a clutch of guinea eggs this summer. 3 hatched, & are doing well in my coop. One of them has a crossed beak. It's growing longer & I'm afraid it's going to interfere with her eating. She can't peck food off the ground, she only scoops it out of a bowl. Can it be cut back?

 

[racuda]

I had a cross beak Silkie once. She died of starvation, and I regret not culling her. If your Guinea can't get food off the ground it sounds like it may be heading down that same path.

 

[True Grit]

Mine is 6.5 months old and I have to feed her extra in a deep dish and give her oatmeal and yogurt and kind of assist her with her tomato or watermelon treats. They have to be cut to the right size for her to be able to pick up. I wish I could bring myself to have her debeaked but I would think the recovery would be very painful. I trim her beak with human toenail clippers from time to time but you can't go too far back or you hit blood vessels. If you start now and do it every other week or so perhaps you could keep her upper beak from hooking downward. By the time I noticed the hook and how bad it was, the blood vessels prevented me from taking too much off.

 

[mandyp]

I feed them all in deep wide dishes, so she gets plenty. She's fat enough. And she eats from my hand, too. I hope I don't end up having to cull her.