PLEASE HELP ME! Face being eaten? Beaks gone???? Help! GRAPHIC PICS!!!

[Whiskey Bay]

Quote:
I 'sort of' have/had the same problem.One of my pheasant hens was looking kind of down,with her eye closed(on the side closest to me) and her corner of her mouth loked odd.I caught her up and upon looking her over I saw part of her beak was actually knawed on.literally.... Not as horrible as your babies mind you,but it is pretty bad.Still not sure if she is gonna make it.I've given her antibiotic shots for infection and been cleaning her face up.Her beak is still intact except for the top of it.Around her nostrils...you can see where it was chewed on.At first I thought of one of the rabbits.Their cage is hung on the outside of the coop behind the pheasants.But upon looking into it,there is no way they could reach.The cages don't come within a foot of each other,plus 2 layers of 1x2 wire and 2 layers of chicken wire. But I know I have some rats coming through there.I shot one with my 380 the other day,sittin in the garden chewing on one of my tomatoes. I tore up 30 tomato bushes,20 cucumber,8 bell peppers,banana peppers,and a few others. I also had one of my young geese found with a hole in his neck,but not from a dog or anything like that.Another friend has had lots of his birds be eaten by rats.Literally seeing them....

 

[luvinrunnin]

WOW. That's all i could say when I saw the pics. I'm so sorry for you, and the poor birds. I hope you can figure out the culprit, be it predator or disease.

 

[leadwolf1]

The one thing that confuses me is the mention of the eye being swollen shut with infection. If it were a predator, infection wouldn't have had time to get that advanced in a couple hours...just a thought along the lines of the infection route instead of the predator one.

 

[CoopedChik]

I know it sounds awful, But I had a duck who got his bill eaten off by a baby opossum, we had to put him down, he wouldn't eat or anything and he was in horrible pain I think this is one of those cases I'm sorry. Actually I think it's possible a small rat did it because if the bird tried to peck at it when it went by or something the rat would have eatin at him like that not to mention caused a fast infection to set in, or maybe the eye isn't do to infection maybe it's nerve damage from the attack.

 

[Beekissed]

When I was young we would find our chickens dead on the roost with just their breast eaten off. It looked like the chickens just sat there and let something eat them alive. We caught the culprit...it was a possum.

I'd place a game cam in your coop and see what shows up in the night.

 

[Smokin Silkies]

Some more info:

This literally happens overnight with no prior symptoms that I can see.
No, I have not found any beaks, or barely a feather. No blood anywhere except for the Lav in the pic. She also has a little more damage than the others did.
The eye may not be infected?? I just assumed it was because ut was a littlr swollen & shut?? Could be wrong?

I lost the first one almost 3 weeks...same thing, happened overnight//no symptoms.
The other 3 I've lost over the last couple days, 1 at a time, also happening overnight.

I inspect my chickens a few times a week. I did have a slight problem with mites before but nothing severe except for with ONE chicken and that was months ago.
They never showed any symptoms before? And like I said before..of the 4 that this happened to, only 1 died. The other 3 I put down.

 

[sadies chicks]

I won't take a guess on what did this to your sweet babies, there are enough theories to work though, I just wanted to say that if I lived near you I would be on my way to help you fix your coop and make it safe for the babies. I am so sorry this happened

I will be giving my sweets extra hugs tonight

 

[CoopedChik]

I think you should set up a camera this is too weird. I don't think your birds are dieing from you not caring for properly. I think it's a predator Obviously opossums have a taste for beaks so a baby opossum can do a lot of damage and still be too small to really keep out or like I said before a rat I'd move my birds into a more safe cage until your sure it's safe and like some others have said set up a camera.

 

[Lyssa]

OMG that is so horrible. I don't have any words of wisdom, just incredible sympathy. I am so sad for you.

 

[chi-rn]

I really think you may have a possum problem.