Budgie with overgrown beak

Re: Budgie with overgrown beak

Marie Kubiak — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 15:29:54 GMT

Hi,

I would look at using something a bit more precise if you can - a dremel with fine end piece or even a dental burr, just to correct the shape a little more than nail clippers do. I would be wary of whether clipping is causing further damage - much the same as with teeth, clipping causes unpredicatable stresses along the beak and may be exacerbating the problem. However, more precise techniques need a GA to avoid trauamtising soft tissue as they move and to try and avoid inhalation of dust as the beak is effectively sanded with thte instruments generating losts of dust. There is always a risk with anaesthetising any animal and birds love to mask their true level of sickness so can be unpredictable patients. There are a couple of birds I do conscious (severe hepatic damage, poor GA reactions previously) but in all honesty these conscious ones stress me a lot more than the GA'd ones and the birds really don't enjoy it either! If you can persuade the owners to let you GA and do it as thoroughly as is possible then you are likely to find the interval between trims decreases.

If owners are not willing to investigate further (quick jugular blood draw under GA is simple and bile acids are primary consistent marker of hepatic function in birds) then you may be stuck doing fire brigade medicine of trimming as and when.

Diet is often one of the biggest factors - typically these birds are fed a primary millet diet with occasional honey sticks!! Introducing pellets, fruit and veg will dramatically improve the diet (with particular regard to Vitamin A in these cases). So far Lafeber nutriberries have been easiest to convert budgies onto but they are tricky to get hold of at the moment - owners can try and source them from Northern Parrots' website. Owners will need to be stubborn though to get birds to convert, it won't happen overnight.

Marie

Re: Budgie with overgrown beak

Niall Taylor — Tue, 24 Jul 2012 10:10:45 GMT

Thanks for the reply Marie - at the moment I'm just lopping the excess of with enormour nail clippers every few weeks as required which he seems to tolerate very well and which gets the beak to something (vaguely) resembling normal. The problem is that even if the lower portion is reduced so it's within the upper section normal wear never resumes and the lower bit just skites off to one side again, forming that peculiar trough arrangement you can see.

Regarding hepatopathies etc, this problem has been going on for many years now and he remains otherwise in excellent health which I would take to indicate he is well in other departments.

Basically this has become a bit of a routine for owner, bird and me and everything is pretty good at the moment but I'm aware that at any point the beak could split or otherwise cause worse problems so just wondered if there was anything that could be done to normalise the situation. Any mileage in biotin supplementation or is that another of these things we used to do but doesn't actually make any difference?

Thanks again,

Niall

Re: Budgie with overgrown beak

Marie Kubiak — Fri, 20 Jul 2012 15:02:22 GMT

What kind of corrective trimming are you currently doing?

GA, trim back to as normal shape as possible and assess occlusion then. Dental acrylic can be placed over the rhamphotheca to give a more normal shape and encourage the growing beak to come through in the proper shape. I always find these small birds a bit more tricky though as there isn't much beak there for the acrylic to attach on to.

If the beak keratin is of poor quality then look at other pathologies impacting on beak growth - the mites may have been incidental. Hepatopathies (including Chlamydophila), sex hormone abnormalities, malnutrition can all cause poor beak quality.

Marie