Most of the time, Cross beak can be identified in a chick in its first week of life. However, in the case of my cross beak, I didn't notice anything different about the chick until it was around 3-4 weeks old. Cross beak also tends to worsen over the chicken's life.
Even though this condition causes a bit more difficulty in a chicken's, the severity between cases is great and it does not always mean a death sentence. There is no cure for crossbeak and often many breeders decide to cull a chick that has it from their flock.
I am not down for purposeless killing, so I told myself "Once this thing has troubles feeding itself then that time will come when I may have to cull it from my flock. I cannot know how this will turn out until then. I will at least let it live to be a proper sized meal for my family."
At the end of February is when I got my first batch of chickens. I got myself 4 Easter Eggers and 2 Silver Laced Wyandottes. One of the Silver Laced Wyandottes (SLW) was a little friendly, and somewhat aggressive (not in a real bad way, but would be the first to stand up for itself by pecking at my hands as I was reaching into the brooder) - I should have known I had a rooster on my hands...
As every person who raises a chick does, you end up wondering "Do I have a male or female on my hands?", and then you start asking around for other people's opinions. Some said male, because of the way it would look at me, and some said absolutely female due to the way the feathers on its wing were aligned. I didn't mind either way. I was happy to have this weird little chick who wasn't afraid of me and would let me hold it.
When this chick was about three or four weeks old, I started noticing its top beak wasn't really centered. I thought it to be odd and kind of let it roll with it. I didn't really know what would come of it at the very time, but decided not to worry since it was the heaviest and fastest growing chick of the bunch. Obviously, it wasn't hurting for anything.
The crossbeak deformity really started showing at 4 weeks old for sure. I was a bit disappointed but like I said, it wasn't hurting for anything and was the biggest of the bunch - no need to cull, in my opinion. At this point it was still friendly enough, and I finally was having the hint of having a little rooster on my hands. This is no problem for me as I live in the middle of no where.
He and his "hatch-mate" another SLW.
At 4.5 weeks old they had feathered out enough and I deemed them worthy to be put outside in the coop without an additional heat source. They all flourished. You can see that was still plump and happy in the above photo! This was about the time it was really solidifying for me that he was a roo, haha, I started noticing that his legs were much thicker than the other chick's, and that is a common sign of a roo.
On this day, he was having quite the attitude so I decided to pick him up and flaunt him around his ladies. Bahaha. He wasn't happy about it.
You can see that the cross beak has gotten worse over the weeks, in the images above he was almost 8 weeks old. With a big attitude, I still determined hew as doing find on his own within the flock.
May 16th, about 12 weeks old.
I was able to capture on of Crossbeak's first crows. He only started crowing the day prior to this video, which was taken on June 22! You gotta watch because 1) he looks ridiculous, and 2) he also sounds ridiculous! You will probably laugh!
May 29th and June 22nd
As you can see, he is a big healthy guy. I have another rooster and Crossbeak is still bigger than the other! So far, he is a pretty good rooster. I did have to give him the boot the other day for being a little too aggressive come feeding time - and you're - I guess - not supposed to "allow" them to mate in front of you... But other than that, we've had no real big negative run ins with this one. I am so glad that he is still big and healthy. Even if he is rude at feeding time because of his crossbeak.
Note - I have only "named" a couple of my chickens, they're not real names, but, I have two roosters, this one is Crossbeak, and the other is "the other white rooster" hahaha.
Stay tuned to meet the rest of my chickens! This is only one of my 21 chickens!
Cross Beak Info Sources:
Photos by me using my iPhone 6s, unless stated otherwise!
Check out my most recent Steemit Posts.
- A Free Resource No Homesteader Should Be Without
- Brewer's Blackbirds aka Crap Nuggets [Nature on the Farmstead #4]
- Meet the Chickens!
- Chicken Coop a la Mode
- A Sigh of Relief - Honey Bees [Nature on the Farmstead #5]
- My Hell's Kitchen - As Told By Husband (Funny!)
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- Nature on the Farmstead - These posts will be educational and informative about the nature that happens on my farmstead. Look forward to posts about wild animals, birds, wildflowers and plants, insects, and more!
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