Hen struggling to pick up food, lower beak too long

[trottreacle]

I recently purchased a couple of new hens. One being a nearly fully mature white leghorn. She seems like a very sweet, and healthy girl and the old flock is very slowly starting to accept her in.

I have been watching her closely though to make she she is finding enough to eat/drink etc as she is roaming quite a lot solo due to the others being a bit pushy. The other hen is a little silver campine and she seems quite happy and independent exploring every inch of the garden.

Yesterday when she was eating a few grains right next to me, I noticed that she doesn't pick up the easy grains on the first try, something like my silkie does but that's just because her eye sight is so poor due to having a pom pom blocking her sight, something I do try to trim back regularly, however, my leghorn appears to have lovely bright eyes and isn't lacking sight so I couldn't understand why it took so many attempts to grab a spec of food.

I noticed that her lower jaw/beak is slightly longer than her top and wondered if this is the reason? And is there anything that I can do that would make her life easier. She seems very healthy and sweet, and by all accounts, she certainly doesn't appear to be starving.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated, thanks

 

[DobieLover]

Can you please post pictures of her face? You may be able to trim a tiny bit of the lower beak or you may have to feed a mash in a deep bowl so that she can scoop food out.

You mention grains. The flock should be eating a balanced ration. Oftentimes when feeding a whole grain feed, they will pick out the feed they want and leave the rest. What feed are you offering them?

Does your flock have access to pasture of any kind? Do you have stones or concrete blocks of some kind the birds can wipe their beaks on to keep them shaped?