Hazel broken beak report
I don't have pictures of her beak yet, sorry, the wind today made them all quite jumpy and it was hard enough to get her quieted enough today to get a good look at her beak. I'll try tomorrow, when I check both her and Peanut.
It's been 5 days since I examined her with a magnifying glass and smoothed it with the fine side of an emery board nail file. It seemed to work well and I went really slowly and talked softly to her. Interestingly, the other hens gathered round together on the litter to the left of my feet and faced Hazel. She could see them sitting down there preening and making happy noises while this went on. She soon let me file on one side while I kept her beak from moving much with a finger on the other side, and she didn't fight it. I didn't read this anywhere but I filed in motions that only went towards the tip, like you would doing human nails. I only smoothed the rough bits and jags, wasn't trying to reshape it, but it didn't seem to need much reshaping. It ended up smooth to the touch. From what I had read and researched (there is NOTHING in my new Chicken Health Handbook by Gail Damerow about this that I can find!) this seemed to be a pretty minor case. I thought I'd check her again in a few days.
Unfortunately she has now a thin short crack on her upper beak, a little less than 1/8" long, in the middle of her upper beak tip. It wasn't there before. I didn't file enough perhaps? but I wanted to not do very much at a time then. It seems to end about where her lower beak meets it. What do I do about this, if anything? Is it likely to lead to something worse, and if so is there a way to stabilize it before it does? I can try to get a pic tomorrow.
This situation was sidelined because I had a cat emergency the last three days, poor Big Boy was in a lot of distress, it is crystals in his urine, and he had a bout of something intestinal on top of that. After a long trip and 2 nights at the vets, subcutaneous fluids, an antibiotic shot, new food and pain meds, he is doing much better today. We've been tracking his every move, and now he is acting much more like himself. He's drinking on his own, going to his litter box without too much encouragement, and peeing more each time he goes.
