# Woody with broken beak



## Pidgepodge_UK (Sep 28, 2008)

Hi all, Just found the forum and need some advice.
Four weeks ago I found a squab (about 15days old) that had fallen from a very high tree during a very wet/windy day. With no chance of returning it to the nest and with it being very cold I brought it inside and spent a few hours surfing the net for info on how to care for it.
Luckily (for the pidgeon) my daughter is tube fed, so we have plenty of medical tubing and syringes and hand feeding it with a home made gavage wasn't too difficult. I got some Kaytee formular and managed to get it feeding by itself within 2 days; using a rubber glove over the end of a cut off 50ml syringe.
The problem: When I first found it and inspected it for damage, I noticed a break in its beak and a very small amount of blood, but thought it best to leave it alone to heal.

Anyway, Stinky as we have called him is now nearly weened onto wild bird seed mix and goes out for a fly around the garden every day for about 4 or 5 hours. He generally stays in the same area and begs when I check where he is, then he returns to the house just before dusk to feed, stuffing his face with seed and still begs me for formular. He then roosts on top of a plasma tv in our breakfast room!!!!. where he stays all night. 

The problem is that his beak has now become damaged while he was off somewhere.
The original break was about 1cm from the tip of his beak and went in about 2 mm toward the centre line. There was a sharp barb of dried beak material sticking out a bit like a hang nail. the beak material between this and the tip seemed dry and dead. 2 days ago he came back at dusk and he has obviously caught this barb on something and has split the dead part away. So the tip of the beak is now only 2/3 as wide as it should be. 
This morning It looks every worse, the dry/dead area seems to be spreading around the tip and going back up the other side. The end of the beak has almost the appearance of a hard yellow toenail.

Could this be an indication of a fungal or bacterial infection that has entered the broken area? If so, what do I do to treat it?
I have a few amoxicilin capsules knocking around, would this help?
I also have some probiotic yogurt for mixing with his feed.
Could this be sign of a dietry deficiency as it seems he will only eat one type of seed from the feed (looks like wheat or barley). I don't want to stop giving formular as this is more ballenced.

Any advice would be gladly recieved as I have no experience with pidgeons and have invested quite a lot of time and effort in this little chap and I hope to get him back to the wild where he belongs.

thanks
AL


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Hi Al,

Any chance of a photograph? Does he already have the adult beak?

I don't think it is a fungal infection or that amoxycillin will help as that is an antibacteral. We have a pigeon in our aviary that has a split beak, it has taken on a weird shape, but is still functional.

Woodies have a long sharp yellow tip to the beak to tear at leaves, they can eat a lettuce leaf in seconds. This is where he might be hampered in the wild...but if Stinky is flying home for supper he has already imprinted on humans and might have to be supported by you foodwise for a long time. 

This sounds a bit gruesome, but if a bird at the sanctuary where I take my woodies for ewlease dies, they remove and store its beak. Then if a bird that has lost a beak arrives they have a prosthetic beak ready to replace the lost one. So whatever happens Stinky will be OK if not as perfect as he could be.

I will try to provide some photos of adult and juvenile beaks drawn into quarters, aybe from that you can depict the break more easily if you don't have a digital camera.

Cynthia


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## Pidgepodge_UK (Sep 28, 2008)

*??*

Hi thanks for the reply.
i'll try to get a pic when he gets back in today. I don't know if he has an adult beak yet and don't know how to tell.

When he got in yesterday, the small yellow tip of the beak had gone aswell, so now it almost looks like a normal shape. However this morning I noticed that it has started to scissor (if thats the right term). He seemed to get frustrated when he fed this morning a the seeds mostly went flying, but eventually he managed to fill his crop and it didn't take much longer than normal. He can also drink fine, although he sticks his whole face in the water past the nostils.
Is there anything I can do to correct the scissoring? If I gently push the sides, the beak lines up and it still seems softish. I can see there is a small indent line in the lower beak where the upper used to sit.
I was thinking maybe a rubber band or slice of rubber hose cut to a small band pushed over the beak for the night??? or similar.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Wood pigeons get stressed very easily, so I wouldn;t leave him unsupervised with something wrapped round his beak...I don't think that this is the sort of injury that could be corrected that way, but Pidgey might be able to offer more information on that.

[email protected] found this post by Pidgey which appears to apply in this case:



> If the scissoring occurs because a chunk of the actual jawbone is disintegrated and replaced by simple soft connective scarring, then no retraining will work as no bone will regenerate to bridge the gap. I've got one like that right now. If the integrity of the jaw is intact, then they can be retrained even with daily physical therapy over an extended period. That's right out of the textbook but I haven't personally seen such a case and so haven't had to give it a try. That said, does the bottom beak feel pretty wobbly?
> 
> Pidgey


One of our keepers has a scissored beak, he has adapted to using it that way but it needs to be trimmed occasionally.

I checked Toffe's beak...the vet thought that euthabasia was an option, but it looks almost normal now, Ithis is the link to the original thread http://www.pigeons.biz/forums/showthread.php?t=16911&referrerid=560

I dont know in what order the pics will appear below, one is of a juvenile's beak, the yellower one is of an adult.


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## Pidgepodge_UK (Sep 28, 2008)

*beak*

looking at the pictures, no doubt not an adult beak. It is still dark and quite flat.
I will have had him for a month on wednesday, so he is about 44days old now.
Treid to get a photo earlier but it came out fuzzy, so will have another go tommorow, but from what I have read about other broken beaks, it doesn't seem to look so bad. very relieving.

Thanks for the info and link regarding reshaping the beak. I also looked at the skeletal pics which are somewhere on here and can now see that the yellowish part that was sticking out of the tip was the bone. Which would mean that the bone from the side has been lost which has caused the sissoring. So it makes sense that the beak can't be reshaped by splinting etc unless the bone is substituted.
Was interested to read about Toffee and his beak surgery. Hope the little chap is doing well.

many thanks
AL


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## Pidgepodge_UK (Sep 28, 2008)

*What now?*

Thought this worthy of a seperate post.
What are my options regarding stinky's future? To be honest the long term hadn't crossed my mind. This is the first time I have ever cared for a bird and new nothing when I found him. I was just happy to save his life. But now I am wondering what will be best for him. Here is the facts as best i can see them and a desciption of what he is like, which hopefully will give better picture of what he is capable of:

He is roughly 44days old
He has been gavage and hand fed since around 14days old
has been kept in the house uncaged, with free run of two large rooms.
He has a favorite perch were he spends all night and a second where he sits after feeding or just chilling out and being nosey when people are around.
he has a Damaged beak (about 25% width missing from one side of upper, from just below nostril to the tip) 
some sissoring of beak (mild?, not sure to what degree, might be getting worse?)
feeding himself with wildbird type seed mix twice a day(although seems to be choosy with the type of seeds he prefers) has also eaten small pieces of letuce, clover
Can pick seeds of a flat surface and forages the kitchen floor for seeds he flicked earlier
Also has about 5 to 10ml of kaytee hand rearing formular a couple of time per day, but this seems more to be 'comfort' feeding for the contact rather than sustinance
Can drink well taking about 10ml at a go (whole face in water)
He Is very imprinted on me and little/no fear of my wife or other family members. will sit on their hand and take food.
Can fly well
Goes off for around 4 to 5 hours per day but stays within about 50 metre radius of the house. Usually picks a tree, sits on a branch for a few hours and then moves about a bit
within that tree or its close neighbours. He has had some interaction with the local woodies (presumably his parrents and siblings) basically sitting on the same branch or adjacent. Has also flown to the local Woody hotspot Oak tree and spent some hours there, which is encouraging.
I have seen him pecking at leaves, but don't think he is actually getting anything due to the beak tip being missing.
I often go out to see where he is and call and cooo, which he responds to with a whine. Although it must be said I don't half feel a complete tit!!! luckily the closest neighbours are a good 50 metres away.
He always comes back before dusk or when he is hungry. This seems more due to hunger than wanting to roost. Although he will go to his favorite roost after feeding and stay there all night.

He is very active and spends much of his time just exploring things around the house. wing slapping things and pecking at anything that looks like a spot of something possibly edible. In the morning he stays on his perch until everyone gets up , then comes out to feed himself. He goes mental when I come in the room, flapping his wings, hopping over and flying up to about a foot or so off the floor a few times while whining. It takes him a few miuntes to calm down, then When I put my hand out flat in front of him, he steps on and seems to like the close contact and being stroked. He begs and side pecks my fingers, sometimes giving a little wing slap as well. sometimes it is difficult to get him off my finger, or he will run around my arm as I try to turn him off. 
As you can see he is a lovely little chap and we have grown very fond of him. But I really don't know what would be best in the long run. It would be nice to think that he could return to the wild but I am concerned about the damaged beak, his lack of training and interaction with other woodies. He is entirley dependant on us for food, although he does show signs of some independence and I have showed him the areas where the adult woodies forage the lawn. I have finger pecked at the clover and I think he gets the idea. That is how I showed him how to feed on seeds, which he picked up in less than a day. I have also introduced him to a few different foods like that and have noticed that if I hold the food up in front of him to see(between thumb and finger or in the palm) , he gets the idea much quicker
One large concern is that we also have Buzzards nesting in the garden!! 3 of them at the moment. So the first few times I took stinky outside I hid with him under the gazebo everytime I heard them calling. I think this has helped him as now when he hears them he will usually 'still' and look skyward until they are quite far off and quiet.

So he seems pretty smart and shows sign of independence. Really I just don't know what to do now the 'rescue' part has been sucessfull. I hadn't expected this level of responsibility when I first saw that little ball of grey and green fluff lying helpless on the floor.

AL


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Personally I would not let him go. Because you have started letting him mix with his own kind a such a young age he would probably outgrow his attachment to humans, which would normally be great and would be great even in this case if he could be relied on to come back home for food..not necessarily to the house but to the garden. But a lot of woodies migrate to different feeding places and to the continent in winter. There is the danger that he will go with them or set off with them and get lost. Then he would starve .

I wish you were nearer, so that the sanctuary could have a look at him, see whether the beak can be repaired....

Some of us have unreleasable woodies in aviaries, maybe they could offer him a home.

Cynthia


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