Trimming beak

[heron]

Not sure where to put this - how do you clip or trim an overgrown beak? It's pretty long and I never noticed it before.

I feel like such an idiot for not noticing it before. I'm only noticing it now because I'm trying to hand feed her. (Not much luck with that, though, and it looks like she's going to die.)

Am going to post this under feeding as well.

 

[violetrose]

We trimmed our chickens' beaks very successfully with a sturdy fingernail clipper. We did this over the winter when the chickens were cooped up due to heavy snowfall, and had started viciously pecking each other. It mostly stopped that behavior after one cliping. About 6 weeks later we trimmed again, and the pecking completely stopped.

I was shocked to see a photo on someone's blog that showed a chicken whose beak was bleeding after clipping; that is not at ALL necessary, and it distressed me that the blogger seemed to be implying to readers that this was normal, when in fact, he clipped too far and caused pain to the chicken. Look at the beak with a light behind the chiken if possible, and you can see that the tip of the beak is lighter than the part further up the beak. Clip just the tip, avoiding the more opaque area--just as if you were clipping nails on an animal or on yourself. My husband did this just holding each chicken gently but firmly in his lap, and each chicken took just a moment.