Need help asap

[Kat C]

It got down to the low 30s and high 20s so I wasn't having it I went out and got them at like 2am because even though we covered the wire floor there are 1-2 inch wide gaps all over the coop for ventilation and those had me worried. Every time I went out for my hourly checks throughout the night they were directly under the lamp huddled together so it made me think they weren't staying warm enough since they weren't moving from up under it. Thank you for recommending that I take up close pics of my coop and post them on the coop section I am going to do that as soon as it warms up a little more.

Since they are young and small why not put them in a box and bring them in at night. Certainly easier than getting up all night long.

 

[PirateGirl]

It got down to the low 30s and high 20s so I wasn't having it I went out and got them at like 2am because even though we covered the wire floor there are 1-2 inch wide gaps all over the coop for ventilation and those had me worried. Every time I went out for my hourly checks throughout the night they were directly under the lamp huddled together so it made me think they weren't staying warm enough since they weren't moving from up under it. Thank you for recommending that I take up close pics of my coop and post them on the coop section I am going to do that as soon as it warms up a little more.

I definitely had some nights in the beginning where I'd go out an check on them every few hours to make sure they were ok with the temps. After a few days of no sleep my husband finally caved and just told me to bring the chicks inside overnight until the weather improved and I'd send them back out every morning.

 

[Mandy0922]

Right that is not a normal beak. We had a chick like that that survived for a while but never grew much and finally died. Probably best to cull it now.
However if you can't do that here is some advice from an earlier thread
https://www.chickenforum.com/threads/under-bite.2456/

Oh god no we could never kill her I'll do some research on it thanks

 

[Kat C]

Oh god no we could never kill her I'll do some research on it thanks

Sometimes keeping a deformed bird alive causes more suffering than a quick kill. Every bird (and living creature) is going to die eventually anyway. Birds don't have any idea of how long they might live so they are not sitting around wishing a long life. I don't find keeping a suffering animal alive to be a kindness at all. If the bird fails starts to suffer I hope you will reconsider.

 

[ChickenCanoe]

Sometimes keeping a deformed bird alive causes more suffering than a quick kill. Every bird (and living creature) is going to die eventually anyway. Birds don't have any idea of how long they might live so they are not sitting around wishing a long life. I don't find keeping a suffering animal alive to be a kindness at all. If the bird fails starts to suffer I hope you will reconsider.

X2
Each situation is different and I'm not passing judgement on this case, but when we decide to keep livestock, we accept the responsibility to do the right thing as good animal husbandrymen. It is a difficult thing to do. I once hatched a chick with 3 legs. It appeared robust but couldn't walk and never would have so I put it down.
A lot more human infants would die without millions of dollars of medical equipment and lots of expertly trained staff in neo natal wards.
Survival of the fittest makes for vigorous generations to follow.
Frederick Painter Jeffrey, professor of poultry science at both Rutgers University and University of Massachusetts, Dean of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, author of many poultry books including 'Chicken Diseases' advocated the "rigid culling of all snifflers, droopers, feather rufflers, poor eaters and pale-headed birds to be sure they don't reproduce their kind."
Keeping birds with genetic defects will reproduce birds with genetic defects.

 

[Kat C]

X2
Each situation is different and I'm not passing judgement on this case, but when we decide to keep livestock, we accept the responsibility to do the right thing as good animal husbandrymen. It is a difficult thing to do. I once hatched a chick with 3 legs. It appeared robust but couldn't walk and never would have so I put it down.
A lot more human infants would die without millions of dollars of medical equipment and lots of expertly trained staff in neo natal wards.
Survival of the fittest makes for vigorous generations to follow.
Frederick Painter Jeffrey, professor of poultry science at both Rutgers University and University of Massachusetts, Dean of the Stockbridge School of Agriculture, author of many poultry books including 'Chicken Diseases' advocated the "rigid culling of all snifflers, droopers, feather rufflers, poor eaters and pale-headed birds to be sure they don't reproduce their kind.
Keeping birds with genetic defects will reproduce birds with genetic defects.

If you want to keep a bird with a defect at the very least don't ever breed it. These are very good points. But if a person can't cull for the sake of improving genetics, they should cull any severely deformed bird out of kindness. Even if the bird manages somehow it is very likely you will have to separate it as other chickens are not kind and will pick on any bird that is not able to defend itself, sometimes they will even pick on it until it dies. We bought birds for the first time last year and got some golden penciled hamburgs. We didn't realize how much smaller than our other birds they would be. Even though fully healthy they suffered fear and getting less feed because they were smaller. Finally after almost a year they have enough confidence to get in and get their fair share. How much more a deformed and disabled bird suffers.

 

[shiro5]

Oh god no we could never kill her I'll do some research on it thanks

I have an ex battery hen who is almost 2. She has a beak like this and is absolutely fine! She eats and drinks fine and is head hen!

Monitor her and see if she eats and drinks fine, if not give her deep containers to scoop out of.

Oh Lucy is my heaviest hen too!

 

[Kat C]

I have an ex battery hen who is almost 2. She has a beak like this and is absolutely fine! She eats and drinks fine and is head hen!

Monitor her and see if she eats and drinks fine, if not give her deep containers to scoop out of.

Oh Lucy is my heaviest hen too!

If you will check back on my first comment on the subject you will note that I said "Right that is not a normal beak. We had a chick like that that survived for a while but never grew much and finally died. Probably best to cull it now.
However if you can't do that here is some advice from an earlier thread
https://www.chickenforum.com/threads/under-bite.2456/ "
So you had one that did OK with it and we had one that didn't. I still think it best to cull the chick but note that I offered advice as to how to actually correct the beak. You might want to try that for your hen and make her life better. But of course the minute anyone talks about killing a bird some people get up in arms and can't see anything else.

 

[shiro5]

If you will check back on my first comment on the subject you will note that I said "Right that is not a normal beak. We had a chick like that that survived for a while but never grew much and finally died. Probably best to cull it now.
However if you can't do that here is some advice from an earlier thread
https://www.chickenforum.com/threads/under-bite.2456/ "
So you had one that did OK with it and we had one that didn't. I still think it best to cull the chick but note that I offered advice as to how to actually correct the beak. You might want to try that for your hen and make her life better. But of course the minute anyone talks about killing a bird some people get up in arms and can't see anything else.

I didn’t direct anything at you Kat? I was giving her another side to things. I wasn’t up in arms? I didn’t quote anyone other than Mandy, as even though I didn’t agree with cull or grinding the beak back as a first option, I was simply giving my story of Lucy and advice with the deep dish as a positive experience. This way if Mandy knows good and bad points and multiple ways to help the chick, she can make a decision based on what she has read.

Lucy doesn’t struggle at all so I’d rather not grind down her bottom beak and put her through that or risk hurting her. So my personal opinion would be to see how the chick copes first before trying to correct something that doesn’t need correcting per se. Each chicken is different as is each person experience with cases like this or other scenarios.

If the chick had something drastically wrong that would degrade its quality of like massively then yes, cull. But for a simple small under bite? I disagree and was simply saying my experience

 

[shiro5]

Mandy,

Give it some research like you are doing by asking on a forum

Lucy doesn’t struggle with any aspect of life, is head hen, came from a battery farm and survived for 18 month with thousands of other hens in that battery farm.

Just an example, however wrong or right. De-beaking is a procedure where the beak is purposely trimmed back like that to stop hen to hen pecking. Not saying I agree with this or disagree, just stating the birds beaks are sometimes purposely cut down like this.

If you notice the chick failing to strive there is possibly something else going on too and it may need to go with none aggressive hens such as silkies or if it’s issue is with eating and drinking it may need to be culled as I can imagine being hand fed and watered for life would not be that great.

Please keep me updated on the chick though there are groups on Facebook for birds who are ‘special’.

Good luck!