Official BYC Poll: Special Needs Poultry

[rosemarythyme]

I have a young hen with a severely crossed beak. We feed our birds fermented feed in deep bowls, and she seems to be able to eat without issues. I'm not sure if she can drink from the chicken waterers, but we have tubs and buckets for our ducks that she can drink from. I didn't know there was anything we could do for her, but I'm just now reading that her beak may need trimmed. Should we trim it?

x2 on trimming it. It won't "fix it" in any way, but I can see where it's been chipped at the tip, and you don't want chips to turn into splits. Keeping it filed down will help minimize chipping and cracking and allow her to continue eating and drinking as she has been.

 

[Duckduckchicken32]

We have a duck named Katchka that hatched in April last year. Her left hip is slightly deformed, reducing mobility, so we have to be careful not to make her run to fast. Other than that, she doesn’t need any extra care, so I don’t know if that counts.

 

[quackingdom]

Yes, definitely, trim it. You might need to do a few trims to get it down, then go onto a regular schedule. I'd start off with using toe nail clippers to cut off all the excess growth (the white part) without cutting into the quick. Then I'd take a nail file and smooth out all the edges up to the quick. Within a week, I'd suggest working on her again with only the nail file and again a week after that. Once her beak is doing good, then you could cut back to doing her beak every two to four weeks.

For feeding and watering, always ensure that she has deep food and water dishes. Some suggest feeding mash, which might make it easier for her. If you provide bricks or cement blocks around her feeder, she can wipe her beak off on them and that'll help with keeping her beak down some, and help keep her face clean.

Thanks! Will definitely do that. A couple of our roosters need their spurs trimmed as well, so maybe I'll catch them while I'm at it.

She does get mash (wet and fermented). She can also eat whole sorghum.

x2 on trimming it. It won't "fix it" in any way, but I can see where it's been chipped at the tip, and you don't want chips to turn into splits. Keeping it filed down will help minimize chipping and cracking and allow her to continue eating and drinking as she has been.

I wish I'd known to trim it sooner...maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad. It started very mild, just slightly crossed, and kept getting worse as she grew up, but beyond making sure she could eat and drink, I hadn't thought there was anything we could do until I saw this thread.

 

[rosemarythyme]

I wish I'd known to trim it sooner...maybe it wouldn't have gotten this bad. It started very mild, just slightly crossed, and kept getting worse as she grew up, but beyond making sure she could eat and drink, I hadn't thought there was anything we could do until I saw this thread.

It wouldn't have fixed it, especially given how extreme the skew is in her case, so don't feel badly about it. You can only improve the functionality.

 

[Three Little Bunnies]

I have a hand-me-down Easter Egger named Iris who is mostly blind (ironic, right? But we named her after the flower before we figured out that she was blind). She runs into things a lot and is low in the pecking order, but nothing too terrible. She's a sweetie. She comes to me for hugs.

 

[Thefallenfeather]

I currently have a Wyandotte hen about 8 or 9 months old. she's got a bunged up foot, where its been wrapped around so she walking on the side of her foot. she very skittish, but because her friend we got with her, was killed by a snake. she's aright now. we got her a Plymouth rock as a friend, who loves me. She sleeps normally like the other chooks on the high roost in their pen, we then put an open air nesting sight for them to lay eggs in up were they sleep. The Wyandotte now sleeps in the nest, probably because its a flat surface. It would be easier for her to sleep there now.

 

[eLiV8t]

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I have a cross beaked roo. What are his special needs? He seems healthy and happy.

 

[shanadienne]

Back in 2017 I had one hen about to hatch 10+ eggs and 3 or 4 more broody hens so I decided to split the eggs up among the birds right before lockdown. Unfortunately one of those hens did not like the chick that hatched underneath her, picked him up by the scalp, and flung him out of the nest. I didn't know it was her so I put him back underneath her and she did it again. I brought the little guy inside and he was awfully happy for a chicken with half his scalp missing so I treated him with blukote and gave him back to his actual incubator mama. Until his brother got super aggressive and attacked him, and I had to bring him inside until he fully healed. (Pictures of injuries + a video of him crowing at 4 weeks at the original thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/scalped-baby-chick.1186992/ )

He grew up to be a rather special chicken who, when offered food, would take so long to look at and eventually recognize it was food, hens had already stolen it. He is also the only rooster I ever saw who would chase his own tail thinking it was a hen he could mate with. The poor little guy would spin in circles and finally catch his tail, only to realize it was not a hen.

His name was Skullkid but sometimes we called him Hei-hei. That little chicken had some legit brain damage and of the dozens of birds I've had over the years he's the only one I called my precious son.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

I have a cross beaked roo. What are his special needs? He seems healthy and happy.View attachment 3616037View attachment 3616038

Beautiful rooster! His beak looks like it could be trimmed back some, but it's not that bad. Look closely to your first picture and zoom in on his beak. Going toward the tip, you can see the blue, then the white, and on the edge, there's a thinner piece that doesn't have a quick. I'd trim that back some and see if he needs trimming on the bottom beak. If you've never trimmed him before, then I'd say that's pretty good. You probably don't need to trim his beak as often as these other crossbeaks around here.

 

[Lacy Duckwing]

Back in 2017 I had one hen about to hatch 10+ eggs and 3 or 4 more broody hens so I decided to split the eggs up among the birds right before lockdown. Unfortunately one of those hens did not like the chick that hatched underneath her, picked him up by the scalp, and flung him out of the nest. I didn't know it was her so I put him back underneath her and she did it again. I brought the little guy inside and he was awfully happy for a chicken with half his scalp missing so I treated him with blukote and gave him back to his actual incubator mama. Until his brother got super aggressive and attacked him, and I had to bring him inside until he fully healed. (Pictures of injuries + a video of him crowing at 4 weeks at the original thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/scalped-baby-chick.1186992/ )

He grew up to be a rather special chicken who, when offered food, would take so long to look at and eventually recognize it was food, hens had already stolen it. He is also the only rooster I ever saw who would chase his own tail thinking it was a hen he could mate with. The poor little guy would spin in circles and finally catch his tail, only to realize it was not a hen.

His name was Skullkid but sometimes we called him Hei-hei. That little chicken had some legit brain damage and of the dozens of birds I've had over the years he's the only one I called my precious son.

I looked through your thread, he's quite the survivor! That's cute he chases his own tail. Do you have any recent pictures of him?