I’ve raised chickens for the past 10 years! Growing up I truly wanted any animal I could ever get my hands on. Furry, feathered, shelled, or scaled, I just wanted a chance to have them all. My parents were great and let me experience a plethora of different little creatures I could love.

One day I convinced my Mom to let me get chickens, just a couple, no big deal. A couple turned into a couple more. Then a couple more after that and then I got a rooster and bred my chickens. Hatched some babies and had even more!

My oldest bird now is named Rayven and she is a 10 year old Australorp beauty. Friendly, gentle, kind, and loving. She has hatched two rounds of babies for me and then retired to rest her body and grow old in peace.

Our story began when my sister asked me to raise some chicks for her back in March, 2024. She had recently lost two of her chickens due to various illnesses. and wanted to add some new faces to her flock. Obviously I said yes and off we went. We kept them at our house for about 4 months and then we took them to see their forever home.

Among raising the babies for her, I decided to raise a few for myself. I was only planning on keeping 3 of them but due to a leg issue on one of the Lavender Orpingtons, we kept her as well. Her name is CiCi and she still deals with her leg issues to this day, months later.

There was one baby who was particularly friendly and we planned on keeping from the very beginning. We named her Diamond due to a diamond shaped mark on her head when she was a baby. The mark eventually disappeared as her true feathers came in but her name remained. She developed the first signs of scissor beak at about a month old.

It started off just barely noticeable. The smallest little curve to her beak that we did not see as a concern. She ate and drank just fine with no issues. She was developing right alongside her fellow feathered sisters and we were enjoying her company.

I have never experienced scissor beak in a chicken before and it was a bit of a shock. Looking up pictures, I was horrified. Diamond’s was in the early stages of it and just starting to cross so I wondered maybe those chickens just had it more extreme? However, by two months old her beak had twisted to about the position it has rested since. From what I’ve read on various sites there isn’t really a true treatment for scissor beak and often times the birds die of malnutrition.

Our little Diamond just turned 7 months old this month, October. She is still very tiny and remains the size of a 4 month old bird. We assume she will stay small her whole life and I’m unsure how egg production will proceed. She still has her chick voice at this time so she has not developed that far either.

She always has multiple types of food available to her every moment of the day, even at night. She will sit and eat for hours just trying to fill her belly. There are a lot of things she is just not capable of eating but she still gives it a shot.

The softer the food is definitely better. We have been branching out recently with pumpkin puree or wet cat food to give her some options. They aren’t exactly practical and her nutritional needs are obviously different from what it is for another animal. However, she also needs to eat. So I would rather her eat some cat food then not eat at all.

She can eat scratch grains fairly well. She cannot eat pelletized food in its original form. If you wet it down and turn it into a mash then she will be able to consume it. She likes dog food that has been soaked in water to the point it is mushy as well.

Diamond is always fed separately from her other chickens except CiCi who is her main companion. There are a few chickens that are still nice to her but due to her incredibly small size and the nature of chickens in general we do not allow her to be in the main coops. Diamond has an enclosure that is made just for her but she generally flies out of it to go search around our main backyard. She loves digging in the dirt to search for worms.

We do not like her being in the yard due to the fear of hawks. However, our yard is very sheltered with a lot of tree covering and places for her to hide. We have a healthy crow population that chase off hawks that venture too close. We place Diamond back in her coop whenever we find her out. She often runs to the back door pecking at the glass wanting to come in and search of her next meal.

Diamond has no fear of the dogs and when she makes her great escape into the house seeks out their bowls to find food. Drinks their water and has even jumped on Sophia’s back and went for a ride. She does know her name and will come running when called. She is truly more dog than chicken.

She does stay in the house in a crate fairly often to give her and CiCi some extra attention. CiCi for her leg and Diamond for her eating habits. I’ve been searching for something that would fatter her up but I still haven’t found anything she likes and will eat regularly enough to make that jump in size.

Here is the list of food we currently use for Diamond:

• Pumpkin puree

• Plain original refried beans

• Scrambled eggs

• Greek yogurt

• Wet cat food (has to be the patte kind, not chunky.)

• Wet dog food (had to be the formula kind, not chunky.)

• Liquid food supplement

• Scramble eggs mixed with Greek yogurt

• White rice

• Scratch grains

• Applesauce

• Chick starter feed

For now she is our little scissor beak warrior and we still continue to search for foods that can check all the boxes on a proper diet and weight gain. As we find more options I will add to the list in hopes of helping someone else out there needing some ideas as well.