Worried if you will have a problem with chicken cannibalism? Want your chicks' beak trimmed? The hatchery can debeak the chicks before we mail the chicks to you. We do a minimum of 100 for debeaking service to cover for the set up of it. Beak trimming is permanent. To debeak is not actually to remove the beak entirely, instead it is actually just a beak trimming back less than one half of the beak.
Beak trimming is pretty common for egg laying types of chickens to lower cannibalism problems and improve livability of your birds. Usually broiler flocks and heritage breed flocks are not trimmed because they are either not generally raised in as close of confinement or are more docile.
Cannibalism is a pretty serious threat to any person raising poultry. Poultry peck at anything that is red. Unfortunately blood is red! So once there is some blood other birds will continually peck at the injured bird. Debeaking is an attempt to limit this sad poultry cannibalism.
Alternatives to beak trimming are light, genetic selection, spectacles, enriching the environment, anti-pick salves, nutrition and beak abrasives.
One option would be to use a red light in the hen house. Instead of the birds seeing the red that they are attracted to pick at, they instead see everything as red. I do recommend using a red light to limit cannibalism for baby chicks, but I do not see this as a practical answer for adult birds.
Genetic selection is an alternative. If you chose breeds that are calmer and less disposed to cannibalism that may help. Options may be Cochins, Cornish Cross, Dorkings, Hollands, Buckeyes, Lakenvelders, Orpingtons, Jersey Giants and Plymouth Rocks.
How it is done: The beak is rounded and dulled so that the beak is not pointed enough to be able to peck at the other chickens and cause harm. It can be done with a finger nail trimmer, an electric trimmer that cauterizes the beak.
With beak trimming there are other advantages as well. Less feed is wasted because they do not have as much of a beak to pull feed out of the feeders and onto the floor with. The birds are also quieter because they do not have the fear of other birds pecking at them. Also less eggs are broken because the beak is not
History of Beak Trimming: The Ohio Expirament Station developed debeaking around 1930. They started with temporary trims cutting off a quarter of an inch.
To those who are opposed to debeaking, I want to hear from you if you are disappointed in that we offer this, please email me. I had a customer request debeaking for her chicks. I do not like the practice myself but the reality is that this customer will go elsewhere if I do not do it. If there are more customers angry that I offer it than there are wanting it then I will stop offering it.
