Raising Jersey Giants

[CladdahminiFarm]

Our jg's are not a month old yet. We are having trouble with canabalism. We know it is one chick causing the severest injuries. We think he is a male and have separated him. Right now, we have two questions:

The aggressive chick is too young to caponize. Do we try to partially de-beak him? We realize we brought up two emotionally charged subjects-caponing and debeaking- but he's causing serious problems. He's damaged two chicks by drawing blood on wings. He bit off one chicks two outside flight feathers causing the chick to bleed for three days.He wing appears to be permanently damaged. This is when we realized which chick caused the previous attacks and moved him to the brooder with the larger chicks.

Now he's attacked one of the larger chicks. Farm child 5 heard a ruckus and when she investigated,she brought both chicks to me. I recognized the aggressor by the coloring. The attack was only on the back of the head of the hurt bird. There is a large patch of feathers and skin removed. The skull is clearly seen. I've dealt with the injury as best as I can, but I need good advise here. How do we treat such a sever open wound?

Thank you for any help that you can give.

 

[LindaB220]

Our jg's are not a month old yet. We are having trouble with canabalism. We know it is one chick causing the severest injuries. We think he is a male and have separated him. Right now, we have two questions:

The aggressive chick is too young to caponize. Do we try to partially de-beak him? We realize we brought up two emotionally charged subjects-caponing and debeaking- but he's causing serious problems. He's damaged two chicks by drawing blood on wings. He bit off one chicks two outside flight feathers causing the chick to bleed for three days.He wing appears to be permanently damaged. This is when we realized which chick caused the previous attacks and moved him to the brooder with the larger chicks.

Now he's attacked one of the larger chicks. Farm child 5 heard a ruckus and when she investigated,she brought both chicks to me. I recognized the aggressor by the coloring. The attack was only on the back of the head of the hurt bird. There is a large patch of feathers and skin removed. The skull is clearly seen. I've dealt with the injury as best as I can, but I need good advise here. How do we treat such a sever open wound?

Thank you for any help that you can give.

I'd cull him. It will only get worse. You can caponize at about 1# Maybe that's your better option. It will get rid of the aggression. Have you done it before? Normally 5-6 weeks.

 

[CladdahminiFarm]

We were hoping to find someone else to caponize the birds. We want to keep one rooster for breeding, but the others we want to capon. We've been looking in our area, but haven't found anyone yet. We want to see someone demonstrate it so we can learn the skill. Next year we'll do it ourselves. Right now we are keeping our trouble maker in a pup carrier inside the brooder. This way it wont be alone and it can't hurt another bird. We will have to find a more permanent solution. It's the most aggressive baby bird!

 

[LindaB220]

We were hoping to find someone else to caponize the birds. We want to keep one rooster for breeding, but the others we want to capon. We've been looking in our area, but haven't found anyone yet. We want to see someone demonstrate it so we can learn the skill. Next year we'll do it ourselves. Right now we are keeping our trouble maker in a pup carrier inside the brooder. This way it wont be alone and it can't hurt another bird. We will have to find a more permanent solution. It's the most aggressive baby bird!

Great idea if you can find one? The thread Graphic pics of my day of learning to caponize. Go to it and get to p 109 or so. They did a workshop and took pics to demonstrate. I had to cancel the workshop and it's killing me because I'll be going it alone. Get good tools. The thread site OP is the one that can order the tools from china for you. Not too expensive and much better than anything else around. Hop on the thread and say hi and what you are looking for.
You also might put up a note in the feedstore for old timers. Maybe they know how.

 

[JJSS89]

Debeak. Who cares what anyone else says if it stops the killing. It's not as inhumane as letting him beat up his brooder mates.

 

[CladdahminiFarm]

Thank you Linda B220 and JJSS89. We are happy with any suggestions. I'll look at that feed soon. Farm Husband is home now so we are getting something for the hurt chick's injury.

 

[CladdahminiFarm]

Hi! I posted an update on the condition of the injured chick.(Yes! She is still alive!) But I put that post on the thread under our greeting and introduction. I'm still new on B Y C.
My son wants to know if the scalped bird will look like a bald eagle if she survives to adulthood?
The children are now all for us processing at least one bird for meat. The younger ones are angry at the 'mean' one. The older children are surprised at the birds behavior- engaging in cannibalism. We adults are wondering if all the meat bird breeds have a tendency to violent behavior?
All the information I found on jersey giants claim they have calm, gentle demeanor. They also all say that these birds can't fly. Our birds are flying out of their brooders. We feed them starter crumble, crushed oyster shells on occasion, and put a vitamin/ electrolite powder in their water. Ours seem to start easily and are noisy most of the time. Is this behavior normal for the breed?

 

[CladdahminiFarm]

One more post: The injured chick died. I did read the thread about the silky with the same type of injury. My bird may have been too young or the wound too severe to survive. Farm Dad takes these things to heart. He feels that we should be able to keep the birds in a way that none of them die. Farm Mom thinks the same about the care of the animals, but after reading so much about backyard chickens, she knows that newbies often loose a few.
Farm Dad, Farm Mom, and Farm children #3 and #4 helped to debeak mean baby chick. We clipped off it's tooth on the top and bottom. (If you turn the bird on it's back, it will open it's mouth. You can see that the edge of the beak is translucent. This part grows as a 'tooth') Then we stopped the bleeding using a sodering iron. This also cleaned and sealed the wound. The chick is still in a small cage inside the brooder until it fully heals. It didn't react to the clipping, but did struggle and squawk when we applied the iron. It calmed quickly while we held and petted it.

 

[LindaB220]

One more post: The injured chick died. I did read the thread about the silky with the same type of injury. My bird may have been too young or the wound too severe to survive. Farm Dad takes these things to heart. He feels that we should be able to keep the birds in a way that none of them die. Farm Mom thinks the same about the care of the animals, but after reading so much about backyard chickens, she knows that newbies often loose a few.
Farm Dad, Farm Mom, and Farm children #3 and #4 helped to debeak mean baby chick. We clipped off it's tooth on the top and bottom. (If you turn the bird on it's back, it will open it's mouth. You can see that the edge of the beak is translucent. This part grows as a 'tooth') Then we stopped the bleeding using a sodering iron. This also cleaned and sealed the wound. The chick is still in a small cage inside the brooder until it fully heals. It didn't react to the clipping, but did struggle and squawk when we applied the iron. It calmed quickly while we held and petted it.

Best of luck to you.

 

[SJ]

Welcome CladdahminiFarm to Backyard Chickens and the ups and owns of chicken ownership. I hope you only have one canabal in your flock. I had a canabalism out break my first winter with chickens. A couple RIR hen went to the dark side and culling was my cure. Had I known then what I know now it would never had occurred.

1.Canabalism is cured with space. Free range birds don't do it. "Enough space" is not an equation in square inches and flock size. It is about your individual animal's personality. Locked up birds can go stir crazy from lack of stimuli and lash out.
2.Meat makes a difference. Meat is a complete protein. Animal protein has a more complex amino acid composition than soy. Soy is most likely the main source(possibly only source) of protein in your chicks diet if they are not free ranged. While soy is protein rich the growing chick will have craving for nutrients soy lacks. Boiled eggs are great protein treats.
3. Vitamin water before bed only. Electrolite is salt and thirst will drive birds to feather peck. The more they drink the thirstier the become. Only clean fresh water during the day if you keep birds confined will help as well.
4. Kill the culprit you don't need the genes with a predisposition to canabalize.

Good luck and you are the first JG owner I have heard of with flighty birds.