Pet Forum / Birds / Birds / May 2004

Bird beaks grow consistently throughout a bird's lifetime.  The way they naturally keep their beaks in good shape and proper trim is by chewing on things (okay, I think it's probably fun too).  I've found with my birds that plastic toys don't help their little and big beaks (respectively) stay trimmed.  However, when they chew on wooden toys they seem to be properly groomed.  My thought... there's no much plastic in the rain forest, but lots of trees.  :)  Just my observations.

Oh, by the way.  It sounds like your mother has a Quaker Parrot, also known as a Monk Parakeet.  There are several very good books on the wonderful wierdness of Quakers.  The one I like best is "A Guide to the Quaker Parrot" by Mattie Sue Athan.  It really explained some of their strange behaviors and gave some very good insights to one of the neatest little birds out there.

Amy

P.S.  I'm owned by Punda (YNA), Zumi (Quaker), Buddy (CAG), Cupcake (Eclectus) and Peaches (Sun Conure).
 I wanted to ask if anyone would know the cause of the excessive growth of a birds beak?  My mother has a green parakeet with a greyish spot on his head, I apologize for not knowing the exact breed of the bird.  I do know that it's classified as a parakeet instead of an actual parrot, but I have heard them called monks also.  Anyway a few weeks ago, she noticed a strange excess of curverture on his beak and it was becoming very difficult for him to eat.  She took him to the vet and had his beak literally filed with some sort of electric tool with a wheel on it.  The vet didn't seem to be sure of the cause, except to say that if it started to happen again within a month, to bring him back for tests.
 I was wondering if it had anything to do with his diet.  He eats quite a bit of people food.  

There can indeed be systemic reasons for beak overgrowth, although you look
for the simplest reasons first...mainly, does he (sounds like a monk
parakeet, aka quaker parrot - parakeets are parrots, BTW :).) do enough
chewing and exercising of his beak to keep it trimmed naturally?  If not,
there would probably not be any need to look further UNLESS, as your vet
mentioned, the beak grows back very quickly in which case he'll want to
check for a systemic reason...liver problems being one of the most common
(although there are others).  Indeed, diet plays a huge role in such things.
Using liver disease as an example, quakers do have a susceptability to
problems from diets too high in fats.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with
him eating "people food" unless it's mostly a lot of processed fatty stuff.
Lots of veggies with some fruits and some protein sources (beans'n'rice,
small amounts of lean meats), grains, seeds and nuts would be a healthy diet
of real foods.  Adding sprouted beans, grains, and legumes as a large
portion of his diet would be the healthiest dietary offering (simple and
cheap too!).

While I'd done some research about this issue in the past, I recently had to
review and learn more to deal with this same thing in one of my greencheek
conures, and 10YO hen named Miracle who absolutely steadfastly refuses to
play with toys or chew anything up that might keep her beak worn down
naturally.   My vet also dremmeled Miracle's beak down - the dremmel gives
superior results when used properly - and said the same thing about waiting
a month to see if there's rapid regrowth that would indicate a bigger
problem.  It's been 3 weeks and so far so good :).  All of my birds are on
excellent natural diets, and get a few milk thistle seeds several times a
week so I wasn't too awfully worried about a diet/liver problem at
least...although as I said, there can be other reasons too.

Sounds like your vet (and mine) followed standard procedures and order of
rule-outs according to what I've read :).

NEW BOARD!!  http://www.featherforum.com (referrer - chiaowl)

I wanted to ask if anyone would know the cause of the excessive growth of a
birds beak?  My mother has a green parakeet with a greyish spot on his head,
I apologize for not knowing the exact breed of the bird.  I do know that
it's classified as a parakeet instead of an actual parrot, but I have heard
them called monks also.  Anyway a few weeks ago, she noticed a strange
excess of curverture on his beak and it was becoming very difficult for him
to eat.  She took him to the vet and had his beak literally filed with some
sort of electric tool with a wheel on it.  The vet didn't seem to be sure of
the cause, except to say that if it started to happen again within a month,
to bring him back for tests.
I was wondering if it had anything to do with his diet.  He eats quite a bit
of people food.