Broken Beak Injury

There are a few things you can plan on when you have a lot of animals. #1 being injuries.

I was out checking the flock last night and noticed that one of our girls, Ozzy, has a broken beak. When think that when one of the roosters was mating her, they may have gotten into a fight and he may have pinned her in the dirt to hard.

Sadly, most of our pics didn't turn out since we needed our hands, but i'll give you the run down.

Her bottom beak was broken in half along the midway and the top beak is shifted over. There really isn't much to do for the top beak, so we focused on the bottom.

To start with, we needed to clean it and see the damage. We snagged her in the coop and wrapped her in a towel for her to stay nice and calm. Ideally, keeping her eyes covered so she can't see what's happening.

Using a syringe I flushed the beak and we could see the break along the bottom.

We used our hoof trimmers and trimmed the tip off the flap, so that it would sit flush. Then we applied a small amount of super glue to adhere the two halves together. Ideally, you should use tissue glue, but we didn't have any at the time. Apply a VERY small amount. You don't want any to run down their mouths and chickens have a sensitive respiratory system and the glue can be irritating. Try blowing some of the fumes away from her nostrils as it drys.

We will keep an eye on her and watch her healing process. We want to make sure that she can still eat and drink, this being her biggest concern with beak issues.

Luckily, beaks are continually growing, like our finger nails, and will grow back in time.