no upper beak--help

[Henna56]

I am a newbie with chickens--this hen I am taking care of has very little if any upper beak--see photo--she is doing ok with a deep bowl for her chicken scratch and water and this seems to enable her to eat. However I worry she might not be getting everything she needs.

Does anyone have any other suggestions? please do not suggest culling as she is a pet--I was thinking maybe there was something nutritious I could syringe into her everyday. As well--they (she lives with one other hen) keep tipping over the deep bowl and wasting feed. I have the bucket tied up but there are still problems looking for alternate solutions...thanks for any help

 

[sourland]

In her past life (prior to you) she may have been a production bird and had her beak grievously over trimmed. You can carefully trim back her lower beak just to the quick. This will help somewhat. Also providing soaked layer pellets in a deep bowl a couple of times a day will also help.

 

[Kelsie2290]

It looks like she has been debeaked, it is fairly common in commercial operations / battery hens. With severe ones the main thing seems to be to make sure the birds have a deep food dish as you said, you might try weighting it down or using a ceramic crock etc since they need to scoop their feed more then peck/pick it up, many of the people with them also recommend using crumbles or mash and maybe wetting it. Here are a couple of threads on it where people talk about dealing with debeaked birds, feeding them and supplements etc, the one has a link to a battery hen thread
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/32842/debeaked-chickens-please-help-me and https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/861880/debeaked-and-beaked-hens-in-same-coop
You might also want to consider taking the bottom beak down a little since it seems to be getting long, either filing or using a grinder, very carefully, works https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/602034/need-help-asap-trimming-a-crooked-beak

 

[Henna56]

thanks very much for the info and the great links--very helpful--I just made her porridge with an egg (including shell) crushed strawberries and a little cat food mixed in...they both love it! i will make sure she gets this regularly along with a vitamin. thanks again