Outer layer of Rooster Beak has Come Off

[pretzel]

Hello. I have a very cool Rhode Island Red rooster. He is an Elder bird and quite old.

I recently noticed that his beak looked bizarre, like the top beak had snapped off at a 90 degree angle. I brought him into our quarantine zone to get a better look at him, and it appeared that the outer layer of his top beak had 'shed' itself and was loosely attached. In fact, it fell off completely a couple minutes later. The beak underneath is slightly shorter than the lower beak, and it had some dried blood on it.

Here are some images that I took:

Here are pictures of his beak now. Note the blood and the fleshy texture.

Here are pictures of the outer beak layer that came off.

This is the most bizarre thing I have seen in a long time and I am extremely confused as to what is even happening here. Is this some kind of cursed molting thing? I looked at a thread here earlier about 'beak molting', but I didn't see anything in that thread that was like this. My main concern is whether or not his beak will harden again so that he can eat normal food. In the meantime we are going to get him to eat soft food. He is an old bird and I fear that he may decease soon. He is fed basic chicken feed and we throw scraps out to them a couple times a week, so I don't think it is a food deficiency thing, although if you think it is then please let me know.

Thanks for the help lads

 

[Stipenvlerk]

I have no clue about what might have happened.
Only you are not the only one. If you search BYC a handful of people experienced the same but I don’t think one of them ever found out what exactly was going on.

now the gross story
Humans have this sometimes with a toenail after hitting it quite hard. No bruises, the thing just felts off after a while and a new one grows in. End of story. could it be something like that?

 

[pretzel]

Thanks for the response. I also found a couple of other threads yesterday and from what I've gathered, he probably hit his beak really hard on something. He has trouble jumping to the roosts at night due to his age (he is 7 going on 8) so my guess is he fell and damaged the beak.

In the meantime we've given him a deeper water bowl and some mushy food that he's been eating fine. Yesterday we cleaned his beak with saline solution to keep infection out and to remove all the food stuck on it. The threads I've read seem to suggest that way too much beak has broken off for it to grow back (his age doesn't help), but it will eventually harden so that he can eat normal food again in theory.

If anything interesting happens I'll post it here so that others who encounter this have more info.

 

[Ccort]

Thanks for the response. I also found a couple of other threads yesterday and from what I've gathered, he probably hit his beak really hard on something. He has trouble jumping to the roosts at night due to his age (he is 7 going on 8) so my guess is he fell and damaged the beak.

In the meantime we've given him a deeper water bowl and some mushy food that he's been eating fine. Yesterday we cleaned his beak with saline solution to keep infection out and to remove all the food stuck on it. The threads I've read seem to suggest that way too much beak has broken off for it to grow back (his age doesn't help), but it will eventually harden so that he can eat normal food again in theory.

If anything interesting happens I'll post it here so that others who encounter this have more info.

This happened to my young girl. How did things turn out? How long until it hardens?