I have experienced a strange situation this year. I shipped some chicks, a mix of wheaten/blue wheaten and black to a very nice lady earlier this year. About three weeks after receiving the chicks, she sent me a picture of one with a mild cross-beak. I offered to refund her for that chick, but she didn't want that - she just wanted me to know. I appreciated that.
Of course, that made me go back through all my chicks - both from that hatch and from earlier and later hatches - to see if I had any other cross-beaks that I had missed. Not a one. I haven't been contacted by any other buyers about cross beak and I have about 100 chicks that I've kept for myself - no cross beak anywhere.
Fast forward a couple of weeks and this same person wrote to tell me another chick has developed cross beak. I immediately refunded her for two chicks.
I have chicks that came out of that same hatch and are the same age and I have older chicks from earlier hatches, as well as younger chicks from hatches since and I still don't see a single cross beak.
Everything I've read about cross-beak seems to point to genetics, with some possibility of temperature spikes causing cross-beak. But, in either case (temperature or genetics), with over 100 chicks here, plus the other 400 I've hatched and sold - wouldn't I be seeing it more?
Thankfully, those chicks were marked and they both come from the same pen, so I can eliminate the possibilities of where it is coming from, if genetic.
Have any of you had this happen or can offer insight as to possible causes, solutions?