valeriebutterley
New member
Morning all,
up very bright and early so I thought I would give my thoughts on beak bits.
After the marathon with my Whitestar, who was responsible for seriously harrying past chickens, being separated, then being OK of her own accord, I saw it was time to arrest, separate and put beaks on the purportrators of the current feather plucking outrage.
All was peace, glorious peace with my beautiful new flock when I discovered my littlest brown hybrid, Tatty, was being seriously feather plucked.
I had thought she was just a bit naturally untidy featherwise, hence the name. I was horrified when I picked her up for a cuddle and saw she was plucked from neck to stern, neat and clean, no wounds, unlike Summer the Whitestar who went for the back and neck and did serious physical damage followed by death from shock in most cases.
Action followed, naughty Blacktail out of flock to be followed by v. naughty Light Sussex hybrid a couple of weeks later, had thoughts that they might as well pluck each other and get on with it.
Decided to try beak bits when I saw Tatty happily and seriously munching the hindquarters feathers of my mighty Croad L., Suki, quite a sight, little brown hen munching on mighty black one's bum feathers and having to reach to do it, and very gentle giant tolerating it.
Bought the beaks, took several days to puzzle them out, and when I did they seemed a bit cruel to me.
However, with help from daughter-in-law actually fitted them, hens re-integrated in pen, along with Tatty, hopefully mighty Croad Suki will soon regrow her beauty bottomwise.
So...... the bits work, or seem to, the hens do not appear to be bothered by them, apart from initially, with a great deal of head shaking and beak rubbing on anything convenient, they eat, drink, gobble corn and mealworm treats with no bother, and I noticed that they seem even to be able to grab and nibble the grass if they are out and about. Alls well that ends well.
up very bright and early so I thought I would give my thoughts on beak bits.
After the marathon with my Whitestar, who was responsible for seriously harrying past chickens, being separated, then being OK of her own accord, I saw it was time to arrest, separate and put beaks on the purportrators of the current feather plucking outrage.
All was peace, glorious peace with my beautiful new flock when I discovered my littlest brown hybrid, Tatty, was being seriously feather plucked.
I had thought she was just a bit naturally untidy featherwise, hence the name. I was horrified when I picked her up for a cuddle and saw she was plucked from neck to stern, neat and clean, no wounds, unlike Summer the Whitestar who went for the back and neck and did serious physical damage followed by death from shock in most cases.
Action followed, naughty Blacktail out of flock to be followed by v. naughty Light Sussex hybrid a couple of weeks later, had thoughts that they might as well pluck each other and get on with it.
Decided to try beak bits when I saw Tatty happily and seriously munching the hindquarters feathers of my mighty Croad L., Suki, quite a sight, little brown hen munching on mighty black one's bum feathers and having to reach to do it, and very gentle giant tolerating it.
Bought the beaks, took several days to puzzle them out, and when I did they seemed a bit cruel to me.
However, with help from daughter-in-law actually fitted them, hens re-integrated in pen, along with Tatty, hopefully mighty Croad Suki will soon regrow her beauty bottomwise.
So...... the bits work, or seem to, the hens do not appear to be bothered by them, apart from initially, with a great deal of head shaking and beak rubbing on anything convenient, they eat, drink, gobble corn and mealworm treats with no bother, and I noticed that they seem even to be able to grab and nibble the grass if they are out and about. Alls well that ends well.
