Chick with crooked beak

Will this chick survive to butcher age? It's bottom beak twists off to one side some. Enough to be noticeable, but not to an extreme. I know it will need to be culled at some point, but thought I would see if it would/could survive until it is big enough to butcher. If anyone has experience with this please let me know.

Also what usually is the cause of something like this?

In general crooked beak is a genetic problem. Whether the chick is able to eat and drink enough to grow and remain healthy to butcher time depends on how crooked his beak is or gets. The beak tends to keep getting more crooked over time in my experience.

I totally agree with Poplar Girl. That beak will undoubtedly become worse, this is common for that to occur. It will not eat properly and if you are trying to raise it for meat, you gonna lose out on that one, it will not grow as properly nor put on weight properly. Anything with a crooked beak I cull immediately as soon as it is seen, tough love. It absolutely will get worse. Good luck, make the right decision, and have a great day, CynthiaM.

Not speaking from experience here, but if the beak is not too bad, how will this be different from a bird that has been debeaked to prevent pecking? It is just one bird, and one with a limited life and no chance of breeding. Why don't you do an experiment here and see how he fares?

No, she said the bottom beak is twisted, I think that would prevent proper eating for surely. Debeaked birds are different. Those beaks are not twisted, they are in the proper state for a beak, just the top part of the beak has become shortened. Totally different scenario. have a wonderful day, CynthiaM.

I recently experienced a crooked beak for the first time. It did not have a happy end. The bird hatched fine but hte beak got more and more twisted over time. Reached the point where the side of the face looked mal-formed, like the whole skull had some developmental issue. I kept hoping it would self correct. No such luck. It worsened.

At first the bird could eat. But as time went on the beak twisted so much that the tongue was always visible, the interior of the mouth got dried out, food stuck to the birds face in dry, crusty clumps. IT had trouble drinking and eating was more difficult than a bird whose beak has that fine, pincher/stabber ability.

The thing looked and acted miserable and despite giving it many weeks to show improvement, it never happened. Culled the bird. It was very light (mind you it was young) but it should have weighed a bit more.

I think if the beak is not too bad and if it does not get worse, just stays the same, the bird might make it. BUt if it is a worsening situation...that bird will be hungry and miserable all the time.

Last time I did meat birds one had a crocked beak and it survived to slaugter day. Mind it was 1/3 of the size and you could fit it inside the cavity of another meat bird, which we did for a joke to see the size difference. But it was able to be with all the others no problem was first to the feed and had no problems standing up the the large meat birds.

Well, since we cannot see the beak, I guess you could monitor it to ensure the bird was not suffering. I have had many with twisted beaks, both top and bottom. All could eat as easily as the others at a young age, but I cannot say about what happens as they grew. I culled them all since I was breeding to the standard.

The worst was a beak twisted so badly that one whole eye had disappeared. Interesting that the twists all happened one year, but haven't had problems with it since.

I took pics if him last night and was going to post this morning but now there is no reason. He died last night. He was eating and drinking but obviously was unable to survive

In my experience, some crooked beak birds can get along and survive to butcher weight. The biggest problem I have had with crooked beak birds I have kept is feed wastage. The little things always go mad trying to eat the feed, have almost no ability to eat pasture foods and spill more feed on the ground than they eat...makes for an expensive roast chicken compared to a healthy bird with a proper beak.

edit: didn't see your above post, sorry to hear you lost the bird...

edit: didn't see your above post, sorry to hear you lost the bird...[/quote]

Don't want to sound like I don't care because I do but I was raised that when you have livestock you have dead stock

smokyriver wrote:

edit: didn't see your above post, sorry to hear you lost the bird...

Don't want to sound like I don't care because I do but I was raised that when you have livestock you have dead stock

I know, but I was raised to offer sympathy when something dies

I wasn't trying to be rude. After coming back and reading this I really did come off that way, very sorry!! Thank you for the sympathy on the loss!!

That's ok, it's hard to communicate properly in text sometimes. No harm done.

Smokeyriver was it a meat bird or one u hatched?

It was one I hatched. He was a black copper maran. I think the eggs had been shook pretty bad in the mail. That is the only thing I can think of because I lost a lot of eggs early on at around 10 days, and then quite a few fully developed then died before hatching with the yolk absorbed on most. The was the last chick to hatch.