Hen's lower beak broken. URGENT advice needed.

[LibraLen]

Hi Members,

This morning I saw one of my hens' lower beak was dangling and have been broken.

I have read the other threads on here regarding this, but those all seem to be limited to the top beak and mostly the tip being affected.

With my hen's lower part of the beak hanging downwards, I can see some soft tissue and her tongue. The bleeding has mostly stopped. She is trying to peck food, but obviously can not get anything in. I have succeeded in feeding her rice-crispies, as she turns her head sideways and manages to get some in her mouth.

When lifting the hanging beak up, I can see she's in pain. The base of the beak seems to be intact, but it's broken very very close to the base.

This hen is a strong one, as she recently recovered from an attack where she was torn open, and she bounced back and started laying again. She's about 3 years old now.

I don't want her to suffer and would want her to have a reasonable quality of life. Can that be achieved here, or should I have her put down ?

I'm very very new to Chickens, but can say with certainty, the bumble-foot and torn open after an attack and now this beak story is leading me to believe that there's a fair amount of heartache involved in doing this.

It breaks my heart to see my favourite and stongest hen like this.

Please advise.

 

[ten chicks]

Hi Members,

This morning I saw one of my hens' lower beak was dangling and have been broken.

I have read the other threads on here regarding this, but those all seem to be limited to the top beak and mostly the tip being affected.

With my hen's lower part of the beak hanging downwards, I can see some soft tissue and her tongue. The bleeding has mostly stopped. She is trying to peck food, but obviously can not get anything in. I have succeeded in feeding her rice-crispies, as she turns her head sideways and manages to get some in her mouth.

When lifting the hanging beak up, I can see she's in pain. The base of the beak seems to be intact, but it's broken very very close to the base.

This hen is a strong one, as she recently recovered from an attack where she was torn open, and she bounced back and started laying again. She's about 3 years old now.

I don't want her to suffer and would want her to have a reasonable quality of life. Can that be achieved here, or should I have her put down ?

I'm very very new to Chickens, but can say with certainty, the bumble-foot and torn open after an attack and now this beak story is leading me to believe that there's a fair amount of heartache involved in doing this.

It breaks my heart to see my favourite and stongest hen like this.

Please advise.

Here is a link with instructions on how to repair a broken beak.

http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/01/repairing-chickens-broken-beak.html

 

[LibraLen]

Thank you, I will see what I can do.

 

[LibraLen]

Just an update.

Upon closer inspection and a good cleaning of the affected area, I noticed thta only abour 2mm of the beak on the head's side was intact.

I took the hen to the vet. They put her under and found that the lower beak had actually shattered into many pieces and the initial idea to use a hypodermic needle as reinforcing glued in to keep everything intact was not found feasible.

Sadly, the vet had to put her down.