#beak ask

Mia’s beak is offset, she has a couple birth defects and one of them is that her lower jaw is slightly too far to the left. You would probably never notice it under normal circumstances but it is there

This alone makes her beak “iffy”, I have to pay very close attention to her beak health because of the way that it sits. She can be prone to lopsided chewing and unaligned pressure that can cause parts of her beak to wear down faster than other parts, it can also cause parts of her beak to simply snap under the pressure due to the wonky way the beak sits when it closes.

Most recently she was having a combo problem where she was chewing exclusively to one side which caused one part of the beak to wear down more than the other as well as her looking like she’s lacking some calcium which causes it to wear down faster than usual. The result was two things:

a very long right side tominal tooth

And an overgrown left side of her lower beak

Typically this will resolve with chewing (usually holding something so she has to chew on the other side and even things out) but it got pretty bad this time so I did have to file it down.

How I know she needs more calcium is by the appearance of the beak itself. If she’s getting good amounts of calcium the beak will be relatively smooth and shiny with some lines that show new beak layers shedding.

If she needs more calcium the beak appears a bit more pale, “dry” looking, and very flakey, almost like beak dandruff. The very edge of the beak can sometimes be a good judge as well. The top healthy image is very rounded and smooth, the lower unhealthy one is more jagged and thin.

An overgrown beak is not determined by the overall size, you look at the length of either portion and judge by how far they extend past their ideal position.  Typically the tip of a parrotlet beak just slightly overhangs their lower beak, if it’s extending way more than that ideal position then it’s longer than it should be and you either need to invest in more toys, teach them how to use toys, or, if they’re really long, get a veterinarian to dremel the beak. Dremeling is not a fix to the problem, it just prevents the bird from getting injured or being unable to eat while a problem is sorted out.  If your bird’s beak is overgrowing that’s a large indication that they aren’t playing enough or don’t have enough toys to play with, overgrown beaks can also be due to illnesses or deficiencies where the body can’t form the layers correctly and end up making really long, weak layers instead.

Notice the amount the beak overhangs in these two (appropriate length)

and how much in overhangs in this bird (overgrown)

In some cases the lower portion may overgrow as well in which case you would notice that the bird couldn’t close it’s mouth fully. Typically this portion doesn’t overgrow unless something is medically wrong since eating food is usually all it takes.

It could be a great variety of things, dark spots on a beak can my indicative of disease, if the beak is overgrowing is can be a hemorrhage, if it’s nearer the cere on both sides it can just be hormones, it can also just be a bruise.  I wouldn’t be overly concerned at this time unless they start showing other irregular behaviours, it’s very likely just a bruise from hitting something too hard that will heal up on it’s own.  If it is a bruise do keep an eye on her for anything irregular that may be a symptom of a neurological condition, I’m certain she’ll be fine, bruises happen, but better to have an eye on her just in case.