5 day old chick developed cross beak

[Red Horse]

This week I sneaked some hatchery chicks under my broody olive egger and she's been doing what seems like a great job (this is my first time not raising the chicks in a brooder myself). Today was the first day I got to let her out of the run with them and sit and check them over throughly, and I found that this little olive egger had cross beak. I have pictures of them from the day I brought them home and it doesn't look like she had it then. They're 5 days old so I'm trying to figure out what happened?

She hasn't even been on my watch list so far... she's been eating, drinking, and has definitely been the zoomiest. How bad does it look? Can she live a comfortable life?

 

[sourland]

That's not too bad right now, but sometimes it will become progressively worse. Monitor her for deterioration.

 

[Red Horse]

That's not too bad right now, but sometimes it will become progressively worse. Monitor her for deterioration.

Thank you, I will! At this age, do you think it's more likely genetic or that something happened? This hen is smaller than I would have liked for this number of chicks and I did have one that was pasting up until today, so I've been worried about lack of sufficient warmth being a factor?

 

[sourland]

It may just be coincidence, but it seems that cross beak is more common in birds with the blue egg genetic background.

 

[Red Horse]

It may just be coincidence, but it seems that cross beak is more common in birds with the blue egg genetic background.

That's such a bummer, I had no idea. Hopefully she doesn't get any worse... she's an absolute menace to Mom and sisters, I feel like she'll be fine if she can keep eating well!

 

[Red Horse]

The 5-day old is now a month old, and is very pretty when she isn't covered in mash and needing her lower beak swabbed. My husband was not willing to help me provide the extra care (I work two full-time jobs so he currently feeds her lunch and occasionally dinner since he works from home) needed to keep her going and asked me to agree to either rehome her to someone who has experience with crossbeaks when she is fully feathered, or reassess her health at that time and consider euthanasia. So that's what I'm doing now that we're almost there.

She's getting mash 3x per day but I don't think she's able to grab as much as she has been in the last couple of weeks (I wet the feed and fluffed it into big moist chunks and she was scarfing them down). I haven't seen her fill her crop all the way this past week. She's definitely thinner than I would like, but not very bad yet... Can anyone tell me how severe her beak is at this point, and whether I can trim it to make her more able, or if I should just go ahead consider 1 month of life better than nothing?

 

[rosemarythyme]

Can anyone tell me how severe her beak is at this point, and whether I can trim it to make her more able, or if I should just go ahead consider 1 month of life better than nothing?

That's already pretty severe and it will likely continue to worsen as she continues to age. Trimming will only do so much in a case like this (mostly it would reduce chipping damage and reduce the amount of overgrowth that might make it harder for her to eat). Being realistic, if you and your family don't have the time to give her special care, it'd be best to rehome her or put her down, rather than watch her starve to death.

 

[Red Horse]

That's already pretty severe and it will likely continue to worsen as she continues to age. Trimming will only do so much in a case like this (mostly it would reduce chipping damage and reduce the amount of overgrowth that might make it harder for her to eat). Being realistic, if you and your family don't have the time to give her special care, it'd be best to rehome her or put her down, rather than watch her starve to death.

Yes, rehoming or euthanizing are my only two options. I would only consider rehoming over euthanasia if she was in good health and had a good prognosis at this point but sounds like it may be time to euthanize if it's that bad.

 

[AinaWGSD]

I'm sorry to say, but euthanasia is probably your best option for her. Rehoming with someone who has experience with crossbeaks would be fine, but realistically finding that someone is like searching for a needle in a haystack.

I've had two crossbeak chicks, both ameraucana based easter Eggers. The first one was in our very first batch of chicks and we raised her to maturity with the necessary accommodations. We butchered her and a few other hens at about a year and a half and that was when we realized she hadn't been doing quite as well as we thought. When we got our second crossbeak chick we did not have enough time to devote to giving her proper accommodations so we chose to euthanize when it became noticeable at a week or two old.

 

[Chicky Babies]

What happened? Did this little chicky make it?

I am so sorry to be posting this so late as today is the first time I'm seeing your post... But if in the future anyone has a chick right when the crossbeak is starting to show, this article explains how you can file a beak to keep the beak fully functional with photos of a hen fully treated and grown: https://discover.hubpages.com/animals/how-to-fix-a-crossbeaked-chicken