I have no idea what happened but part of my chicken's beak is broken off. I think maybe the beak broke when the chicken (named baby) pecked a rock...she's young (less than a year old) so I hope it can grow back but I don't think beaks grow back. The top beak is what is damaged. The bottom beak is perfectly fine. I don't know much about beaks but it seems like they have layers or something because a soft tissue is exposed on part of it. I hadn't noticed this before so It probably happened very recently. Will it grow back and what do I do? It is sunday and my exotic vet is closed (regular vets in San Antonio Texas don't take care of chickens for some reason.) She seems fine other than shes very cautious as she pecks the ground. She also doesn't peck as much either. I have seen reconstructive surgeries done on birds with damaged beaks but I don't think its severe enough for that. She can still eat and drink as far as I can tell. Also how often do chickens have to have their shots? All of mine had theirs as chicks.
FluffyPuff- I had a plymouth barred rock who broke her beak in my first year of chicken keeping. I was in quite a panic wondering what I should do. I turned to my expert resources (BYC being one of them) and concluded that I didn't need to do anything. Gertie seemed unaffected by the broken piece and was able to eat and drink. Eventually the beak did heal itself. If your lady seems to be doing ok and you can observe eating and drinking then I wouldn't worry to much about it. I will say that I am a suburban chicken keeper - not a vet - so a call to yours when they are open to confirm wouldn't hurt. Good luck! Don't stress.
If it's just the first quarter of and inch, it will grow back. No need to put anything on it. It's like you breaking a nail. It grows back, so will her beak.
I used a pain relieving neosporin on my chicken's broken beak. It did not fall off like yours did but it was cracked and she screamed loudly when she broke it, so I'm sure it was very painful. I think parts of it fell off later, but rest assured, she grew back whatever cracked and fell off. I also had a rooster that did the same thing poking his beak through hardware cloth and got stuck. He lost a good portion of his beak then, but in about 4 weeks it was healed up. Don't use any ointment that has a pain reliever in it that ends with 'caine". I heard that will kill a chicken. Not sure- just going by what I've heard on the boards. Be sure not to obstruct any air passages- Oh and I'm not sure how a chicken could eat with any gooey ointment on it, so that might take some ingenuity to come up with something else. I'm not familiar with vetricyn, sorry. Asos, try to make eating easy for your hen though- it can be tricky for them. Having a large vat of feed that they can stuff their face into to get a good scoop of feed is a good idea. Watch for gangrene, pus, infection, etc. Sometimes when the beak grows back it doesn't grow so evenly either, but I don't know what one can do about that. Best wishes to you and yours.
Moistening the feed will make it easier for the chicken to eat, and the other chickens will love it, too. Just make sure none gets left around each day or it can mold. Chickens eat around 1/2 a cup of moistened feed per day, in case you need to know if they're getting enough.
Ok It looks like its healing up a bit and she looks about the same weight as her sisters so I think she's doing just fine with solid food but that's a good thing to know in the future!
Do you have a picture? What part of the beak, and how did it happen? Is the chicken awake and alert? If part of the beak is cracked or broken, she make still be able to eat wet feed in a taller bowl. Here are some articles to help: http://www.the-chicken-chick.com/2013/01/repairing-chickens-broken-beak.html https://www.beautyofbirds.com/brokenbeaks.html You may want to run out to WalMart or a pet store to pick up a piece of aquarium air tubing, and a large regular syringe from a feed store to make a crop feeding device. Take a lighter and soften one end of the tube slightly to dull sharp edges (the part that goes into the beak.) Here is a good thread about tube feeding: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/805728/go-team-tube-feeding If the whole beak is missing, here is a long thread where a chicken was saved with tube feeding until it learned to eat without it's beak: https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/848424/plese-help-chickens-beak-got-bit-off
