Chick with a Severely Crossed Beak

Our cross beak chick with her sister at 2 weeks old.

 

At just 6 days old, I noticed this little chick was cross beaked.  I was really surprised when I first saw it because I had never seen anything like it before.  It wasn't bad at all, so I left it alone and hoped it didn't get any worse.

Over the next week, it did nothing but get worse.  As a matter of fact, just 2 days after I first noticed it, it was already significantly worse.  It got bad FAST!  The little chick seemed to start having a hard time eating, but was gaining weight and size right along with her sister, so I didn't worry too much.  I started researching ahead of time, though, just in case things took a turn for the worst and I needed to take action.

I took away the chick feeder and opted for an gallon ice cream bucket instead.  I pour a couple of inches of feed into the ice bucket so that she can try to scoop the feed up with her lower jaw and get it into her mouth.  She and her sister have no trouble getting into the ice cream bucket to eat and rarely do they soil it.

This week I noticed her spending a lot of time in the feed bucket.  Every time I would go in there, she was in it.  I rarely ever saw her sister in it.  She also started looking significantly smaller than her sister whereas she had been the larger chick.  That's when I decided to start checking her weight.

Wednesday, at just over 3 weeks old, she weighed 6 ounces and her sister weighed 8 ounces.  3 days later, her sister weighed 9 ounces she weighed 5.2 ounces:  a loss of .8 ounces in just 3 days.  I also checked her crop and it was completely empty.  So, at that point, I decided to go ahead and start syringe feeding her.

I beat an egg in a bowl and fed the egg to her with a medicine dropper:  the kind you would use to give medicine to an infant.  I dripped some of the egg onto her lower beak and she then lapped it up with her tongue.  It didn't take long for her to realize what was going on and she began to peck, ineffectively, at the dropper.  I continued to dribble raw egg onto her lower jaw...and all over her and myself and then she would shake her head, spraying tiny drops of raw egg everywhere.  It was a very messy job to say the least.  She "ate" about 1/2 a teaspoon during this first feeding.

After church this morning, I weighed her again.  She was up to 5.8 ounces!  I fed her with a syringe again and this time she ate about 1 1/2 teaspoons!  After her feeding, she weighed 6 ounces and her crop was full so that made me feel a lot better.

My problem is, I don't really know what I'm doing.  I've found that most people cull cross beak chicks, so there's not much information at all on the topic.  There's plenty of information out there for chicks with mildly crossed beaks, there's just not anything for severely crossed beaks.  So, I'm at a loss.

I understand that the odds of this little one making it are very slim.  Aside from not being able to eat or drink on her own, she also won't be able to preen.  Without that ability, she will be much more susceptible to parasites.  She also lacks the ability to defend herself.

I don't blame anyone for culling their chicks, especially with this severe a deformity.  The reason I am trying to keep this little one is for her sisters sake.  There's just the two of them and they are very close.  When I'm syringe feeding the cross beak chick, her sister sits right by her side on my lap, not because I put her there, but because she chooses to be there.  She flies out of the brooder to her sister.

Chickens are flock animals.  They get lonely when they are all by themselves and no amount of human interaction can replace what they miss by not being a part of a flock.  These two are each others flock.  I want to keep that for them if I can.

With all this said, if anyone has experience in dealing with this severe of a deformity and wouldn't mind helping me out with some advice, please reach out to me.  I would absolutely love to hear from you!  Thank you!