genetic deformity? *picture*

[Sonoran Silkies]

Quote:
If you can slightly clip the tips of both top and bottom to make each more flat, that might help. I do not think I would mess with clipping the sides at all for fear of causing the beak to slip to one side or the other.

 

[kathyinmo]

I found this in a book, and typed it up. I find it interesting, and hope it is helpful ....

By Mark Pattison, Paul McMullin, Janet M. Bradbury

Nutrition and Hatchability

The importance of the nutrition of the dam is indicated by the fact that the egg must contain all the nutrients needed by the embryo.

Development in the egg and for a week or more after hatching is, as far as fat soluble vitamins and some other factors are concerned, reliant upon supplies from the yolk. Hence, deficiency signs in newly hatched chicks (and often within the next 7 - 10 days) usually reflect a breeder feed inadequacy rather than a relationship with the starter feed.

It is difficult to affect the relative protein, fat, and carbohydrate content of an egg via the diet of the hen, but the concentration of the vitamins and trace elements in her blood and tissues directly influences that in her egg. Hence, analyses of egg yolk to determine vitamin and other deficiencies in the breeder may be the preferred and more direct route than blood or tissue sampling of the relevant hens.

Even at acceptable rates of hatchability a proportion of dead-in-shell embryos may exhibit nutritional signs, as detailed above, as a result of individual variations of metabolism.

It is of basic importance to realize that hens can produce eggs with dietary levels of vitamins that will not allow the eggs to hatch (except in the case of Vitamin A deficiency, in which the cessation of production occurs first).

Nutrient deficiencies may give rise to malformed embryos or reduction in hatchability, but it may be difficult to identify by the examination of the embryo the nutrient deficiency responsible for the poor hatchability, since the time of embryonic death will often depend on the degree of deficiency involved. Thus, it has been shown by experiment with pantothenic acid that, while in extreme deficiency hatchability may be totally suppressed, in milder deficiencies a peak of early mortality (1-4 days) occurs but later peaks change according to the amount of pantothenic acid in the diet. Most water-soluble vitamins have a similar effect.

In practice the nutrient deficiencies most likely to give rise to reduced hatchability, unless adequate breeder supplements are used, are Vitamin B2 (riboflavin), and some others of the B group (eg biotin), Vitamin E, manganese, zinc, phosphorus.

Early death may be related to:
* Biotin
* Vitamin E deficiency (vascular lesions).

Later death (ie later and around mid-term) may be related to:
* Riboflavin (anaemia, oedema, micromelia, mesonephros degeneration, and clubbed down)
*Phosphorus (no specific abnormalities)
*Zinc inadequacies (faulty trunk, limb, beak, brain and eye development - abnormalities associated with development of the skeletal mesoderm).

Death during the last few days and at hatching, may be related to deficiencies of the following:
*Vitamin B2 (clubbed down, curled toe, micromelia, degeneration of the myelin sheath of peripheral nerves, degeneration of embryonic Wolffan bodies)
*Biotin chondrodystrophy, syndactyly, characteristic skeletal deformities, ataxia, and chondrodystrophy in newly hatched chicks)
*Folic Acid (chicks may be of normal appearance but die soon after pipping; in severe depletion chondrodystrophy, syndacryly, and parrot beak)
*Vitamin B12 (malposition, myoatrophy, chondrodystrophy, oedema, hemorrhage)
*Manganese (chondrodystrophy, parrot beak, globular head, cervicothoracic oedema, retarded down feather and body growth, micromelia and ataxia in newly hatched chicks) - bone formation defects are probably associated with abnormal mucopolysaccharide in the organic matrix of bone. Vitamin B12 and manganese deficiencies may be associated with extreme reduction in hatchability.

Nutritional deficiencies may be direct (ie due to inadequate supply in the feed). This can be the result of nutrients not being added, badly mixed or badly stored feed. Alternatively, dilution by post-manufacture addition of cereals to formulated rations can be implied.

Indirect deficiencies can be caused by antagonists such as mycotoxins, inadequate absorption (eg parasitism or disease), underconsumption (eg overcrowding), or the results of an inappropriate drug inclusion.

While "nutritional deficiency lesions" are commonly seen in dead-in-shell embryos, incorrect feed manufacture is now seldom incriminated and definitive deficiencies of single nutrients are rare. Instead, a miscellany of lesions suggestive of a number of nutrient shortfalls is the commoner finding. It has also been reported that syndromes, which seem to mimic the signs of certain deficiencies, may be evident despite adequate supplies of that nutrient in the feed (eg a clubbed down syndrome has been seen in flocks well supplied with Vitamin B2).

Definitions, for some who may not know:

chondrodystrophy: A disturbance that affects the development of the cartilage of the long bones and that especially involves the region of the epiphysial plates, resulting in arrested growth of the long bones.

myoatrophy: atrophy or wasting away of the muscles.

syndactyly: A condition in which two or more of the toes are joined (fused) together.

oedema: The presence of an excessive amount of fluid in or around cells, tissues or serous (resembling, producing, or containing serum) cavities of the body.

micromelia: abnormally small and imperfectly developed extremities.

ataxia: shaky and unsteady movements or loss of the ability to coordinate muscular movement.

 

[speckledhen]

Sonoran, that is why I said this sort of thing is most often genetic. If you don't know the cause, it would be best not to allow her to reproduce. The hawkish beak is also seen in some forms of dwarfism. Beak deformities can be from several causes, certainly, some of them nutritional deficiencies.

ETA: Now that I look more closely, it doesn't seem to be actually crossed, just parrot-like. I'm sorry I didn't take a better look. I've seen crossed beaks that were also parrot-like so that added to me seeing it wrong.

 

[Sonoran Silkies]

Sorry if you thought I was singling you out Speckled. Not intended as such. Mostly I saw as a very experienced and knowledgeable breeder (Toni-Marie is one of, if not THE most predominant breeders in the US of longtails and longcrowers) who happens to be new to BYC, being immediately contradicted as if she had no valid input. And sometimes people new to BYC are indeed new to chickens and don't really have any real knowledge. In this case I knew it was not so.

I would think very long and hard about using a bird with a beak deformity to breed from unless I was absolutely sure of the cause. Most of the time I do not believe one can really know, and I would not want to take the chance of breeding a fault with a significant health risk into the flock. If one is very good at record keeping, it might be possible to ascertain that a particular bird's beak deformity resulted from incubator temps that were off on day 12, or that it was pecked hard on the beak by a significantly larger bird on its 3rd day of life or that a higher percent of birds from a particular pairing have deformaties than from other pairings. Record keeping is not my strength.

I have a bantam rosecomb RIR hen that I know has only one copy of the rosecomb gene. I know because the breeder who gave her to me toepunched them in a certain manner, and told me about it at the time I got her. I don't recall his exact reasoning, other than wanting to improve one or the other variety with characteristics of the other. Me, I might well have made that kind of a breeding decision, and would later realize that I should have marked the birds from that cross, about the time the pullets start laying and the cockerels start getting wooing on their minds.

 

[Illia]

I really do think it is a genetic issue, a common one at that, and the hatchery is at fault. Of all hatchery produced breeds, I have found that Easter Eggers have gone through the worst. They have, in SO many cases, come to customers having crossed beaks, severely curved beaks, crooked toes, egg-laying issues, respiratory issues, prolapse problems, etc.

If there's a "breed" I'd put a buyer beware on (and not just for false advertising of it being purebred) it would be Easter Eggers. Yes, people get EE's that look normal and healthy, but more often in EE's than other breeds, people also get deformed Easter Eggers.

 

[Resolution]

she's cute. It seems to happen quite a lot in some races and breeds of those races- Bantam Ameraucana- Koro Sea- Rapa Nui- perhaps there is- as an earlier writer stated- something off with the incubator for those breeds. They don't pass it on to their chicks but you will have one with this malformation pop up from time to time. Diet is probably a big factor so in a sense it is genetic in that certain races and the breeds of those races require slightly more lysine or copper or some trace mineral or fatty acid you can never really know. I think she's cute and I have a hen just like her- actually two- both tiny Rapa Nui hens- I think Speckled Hen mentioned that the malformation pops up in dwarfism and that seems to be the case in my experience as I've never seen it normal sized or standard sized breeds. Indeed if I recall correctly, its those little tiny eggs we pray and pray will hatch and eventually do that often have this hawk beak.

 

[abluechipstock]

i've had a a couple EE from the hatchery with messed up beaks, both died young

 

[suzifire]

I found this thread, looking for a solution to a similar problem I have with a chick. She's a Silkie/Favorelle mix...only a few weeks old & I noticed the deformity...she seems to be eating well...as with any deformity, it JUST happens....