Poor things! Advice for debeaked pullets I got today

[speckledhen]

It is not painless. It's like cutting your fingernail into the quick.

 

[cassie]

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I don't like debeaking, but the meat chickens I have found on the road that fell off the truck on the way to the processing plant have not been debeaked. We had a debeaked hen move in here from who knows where. She looked funny but she got along fine on layer crumbles and whatever she found poking around the yard. BTW, chickens with adequate room may pick each other. I think you are more likely to run into trouble with the high strung egg layers. In fact with them, sometimes the picking is worse when they are kept in the larger more roomy cages than when they are more crowded.

 

[ducks4you]

mmaddie's mom :

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... and this is for showing! You can't show a dog if he is missing ANY natural body part... wierd!

What about clipping ears and docking tails?

 

[mmaddie's mom]

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... and this is for showing! You can't show a dog if he is missing ANY natural body part... wierd!

What about clipping ears and docking tails?

lol... I've only shown German Shepherd Dogs and had to carry a letter from my vet stating that he lost one of his permanent teeth to an infection... so I will back up 'cause I don't know the clipped/docked breeds that well. You may have a point. Still think this is a crummy practice (dubbing)! ... as well as clipped ears and docked tails now that I think of it.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

mmaddie's mom :

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... and this is for showing! You can't show a dog if he is missing ANY natural body part... wierd!

Only exhibition games are dubbed for showing. The Old English, the Moderns and the American Game Bantams. This is in keeping with the practice of dubbing fighting chickens. Although exhibition type games are not viable birds in a competitive cockfight the breeders emulate the tradition and the type by observing game characteristics.

In commercial chickens the only birds that are dubbed are the breeder males of both meat and egg type. And then only the comb is treated in such a way as its size is decreased.

In exhibition games and fighting games the comb, wattle and earlobes are removed. In Old English the comb is not completely removed.​

 

[JLS]

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I say you need to leave it alone. I know that it's painful to look at her beak deformed by human hands but messing with it could make things a lot worse. For instance, my Beatrice's lower beak is so much longer than her top beak. But her top beak barely covers her tongue. So if I were to even them up I would hit blood vessles and nerves for sure. Then you risk infection not to mention the trust of your bird will disappear if you hurt it like that. Just leave well enough alone and she'll love you, not fear you.