# Overgrown beak?



## Anouk

Hello again,
I've been trying to wean Marlene, with absolutely no success, and I've just realized that she may actually have a beak problem. I haven't been up close and personal with pigeons before now, so I didn't have a very clear idea of what a normal beak looks like, but Marlene's top beak is quite noticibly hooked over at the end, with a whitish clear tip. I've just been reading some other threads on overgrown beaks, and am now wondering if this might be part of the weaning problem. Her beak isn't scissored at all, but she has the look of a little parrot or a bird of prey, and the tip is very sharp. Her claws have also become very long and sharp, which is becoming increasingly uncomfortable because she really likes walking up and down my arms. I've been trying to cut back on the handfeeding, but after two days of reduced feeds she wasn't feeding herself, and started to have green watery droppings, so I've had to return to the old routine. I'll try to get a decent picture of her beak to post here, but I'm wondering if I should take her back to my avian vet, or have a go at a bit of gentle filing myself. What do you think?


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## Skyeking

If yout think it is hindering her eating ability, you can try filing it, but be careful to go slow and don't file too much. I have filed the beak on one of my Satinette's and my roller, the overgrowth part was quite soft and white and easy to file down. It did not stop them from eating, however.

Add some probiotics to her diet too, it will help with stress.


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## feralpigeon

Please post a picture (profile), that would be helpful. A rehabber friend showed
me a trick for weaning that the youngsters really like. Fill a sock w/seeds
(preferably a dove/quail mix) and make a slit in the sock for them to get
at the seeds then hang it in their feeding area. Use your finger to play with
the slit in front of them showing them the seeds that fall out. They catch on
pretty quick. He calls it "the self-serve Mommy", lol.

fp


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## lwerden

The hanging sock sounds like a great idea. I wish I had know about it when I was weaning Jack. Anouk, please give it a try.

Also, at that age their little toes are very sharp. I was totally scratched up too. Put a brick in the bottom of the cage. Marlene will use it as a perch and it will act a a natural file for the toes. By no means attempt to cut her nails at this age. They are much too delicate and small and will bleed.

I don't have any comment about filing the beak and will have to leave that up to the more experienced members here.

Hang in there.

Regards,
Louise


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## re lee

Anouk said:


> Hello again,
> I've been trying to wean Marlene, with absolutely no success, and I've just realized that she may actually have a beak problem. I haven't been up close and personal with pigeons before now, so I didn't have a very clear idea of what a normal beak looks like, but Marlene's top beak is quite noticibly hooked over at the end, with a whitish clear tip. I've just been reading some other threads on overgrown beaks, and am now wondering if this might be part of the weaning problem. Her beak isn't scissored at all, but she has the look of a little parrot or a bird of prey, and the tip is very sharp. Her claws have also become very long and sharp, which is becoming increasingly uncomfortable because she really likes walking up and down my arms. I've been trying to cut back on the handfeeding, but after two days of reduced feeds she wasn't feeding herself, and started to have green watery droppings, so I've had to return to the old routine. I'll try to get a decent picture of her beak to post here, but I'm wondering if I should take her back to my avian vet, or have a go at a bit of gentle filing myself. What do you think?


 This sounds normal as to the beak. The upper beeak will curve slightly over the lower say about an 1/8 of an inche. And this sounds like a dark beaked young bird, Most dark beak young birds will have a small white area at the end of the beak near where the little crown is when they hatch. The color will darken before long. I would not worry. Hand raised young birds sometimes wean in longer times. Easy to figure birds 28 to 35 days for weaning. Put some feed down for it to learn to eat. And before long it will be weaned and growing up.


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## John_D

As Robert says, a little overhang is fine.

The pic below shows one of ours (adult) who needs a good trim about every couple of months. This pic was taken soon after she was rescued from the city center.

John


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## the bird man

i had bought a vooburg shield cropper that had toe nails that were way over grown and starting to twist and a lower beak that was over grown and i talk to a freind and they said it would be fine to trim both the beak and nails with a dogs toenail clippers and it workd just fine no bleeding or discomfort and the bird was as happy as could be and went back to eating and walking regularly.


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## lwerden

Trimming the nails on an adult piegon is fine, but on a bird so young it will cause bleeding. The quick of the nail is very close to the end of the nail in very young birds and will bleed. Better wait until baby is full grown before trimming nails.


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## Charis

the bird man said:


> i had bought a vooburg shield cropper that had toe nails that were way over grown and starting to twist and a lower beak that was over grown and i talk to a freind and they said it would be fine to trim both the beak and nails with a dogs toenail clippers and it workd just fine no bleeding or discomfort and the bird was as happy as could be and went back to eating and walking regularly.


Before you trim any beak or nails on your bird, will you please post us a picture? It can be very tricky.


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## Anouk

Thanks so much everyone! I'm just charging up my camera now to try and get a picture. Her beak looks quite similar to the picture that John posted, although her beak is black, as Re Lee guessed. She just has sweet little pink nostrils still. I'm certainly not going to leap into any wild clipping without being sure - I'd hate to get it wrong and hurt her. Cutting dog toenails is stressful enough! I wonder if her toenails are just sharp because they aren't really being worn down on anything the way an outdoor pigeon's would. She has two bricks in her enclosure already, but I haven't seen her using them - she tends to perch on a big piece of driftwood that's in there as well. I'll just have to get a falconry glove I love it when she walks around on my hands - I never realized pigeons had such lovely soft warm toes! Thanks so much for the suggestion about the sock, feralpigeon. I found a post about that a few days ago, and gave it a try, but so far no luck. I'll just have to keep persisting. She nibbles very enthusiastically at my hands the whole time I'm feeding her (particularly between my fingers) and she does manage to pick up seeds, but she just throws them around. She's drinking on her own with no difficulty. She has food available the whole time, but even when her crop's completely empty and she's starting to have the green starvation diarhea she doesn't eat. Will be back soon with pictures - thanks again!


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## Anouk

*Pictures*

Well, here she is. She really hated the flash, but it was hard to get the detail without it. Isn't she pretty, by the way? I know she's not the most glamourous pigeon, but I think she's gorgeous. How old would you say she is? Sorry to be bothering you all with yet more questions - you must be very sick of neurotic first-timers!


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## philodice

feralpigeon said:


> Please post a picture (profile), that would be helpful. A rehabber friend showed
> me a trick for weaning that the youngsters really like. Fill a sock w/seeds
> (preferably a dove/quail mix) and make a slit in the sock for them to get
> at the seeds then hang it in their feeding area. Use your finger to play with
> the slit in front of them showing them the seeds that fall out. They catch on
> pretty quick. He calls it "the self-serve Mommy", lol.
> 
> fp


You know I'm stealing that for the e-book.


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## BirdDust

I don't think the beak looks bad. Normally a bird that age would start pecking at seeds and other things on the ground which will naturally help trim down the beak. For the most part, pigeon beaks are not hooked. Judging from the pictures the bird looks old enough to start pecking at seeds. Sometimes they won't eat out of a cup and spreading seeds on the floor gets them started. If that bird was raised by pigeon parents, they would probably be returning to feed the youngster only twice a day. In my coop youngsters on the floor sit huddled in corners just waiting for parents to return. The parents will fly inside to check on them, which sometimes triggers the young to run to them begging food, but the parents fly out leaving the youngsters to return to their corners and wait. Tough love. This is the time when young birds will have some weight loss. Eventually, nature gives them a second kick and they do start looking for food, and exploring their surroundings, and they grow up. However, a hand fed bird can be two weeks behind in both physical and mental developement. I would keep food,water, and grit with the bird at all times. Only handfeed twice a day. One half teaspoon formula, one teaspoon seeds, mixed with warm water, and a few pieces of grit. This bird looks old enough to be spoon fed. Make sure the crop is emptying. Droppings should become more normal with time, but if they don't and the bird continues to lose weight, then it may have something else going on.


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## Larry_Cologne

Hello Anouk,

My baby pigeon rescues all ad long sharp toenails and long hooked beaks when they were young. 

Indoor carpeting didn't wear down the toe-nails. Once they started going outdoors and joined the other pigeons, the beaks and toe-nails wore down enough.

On one of them, before he went outdoors, I filed the toe-nails with a diamond-dust-coated round knife sharpener, which also had a groove in it for sharpening fish-hooks and throwing-darts. Very simple. Sharpener cost about $10, and I carried it everywhere with me in my leather shirt pocket pencil and pen holder, because I also carry several pocketknives/multi-tools (also Victorinox Swiss Army types) with me.

Marlene is a beautiful pigeon. 

Larry


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## Anouk

Thanks so much for that advice - I feel very reassured! To be honest, I was sort of looking for some explanation as to why she's being so reticent about feeding herself. I've handreared a few native birds in the past and they've all been very self-sufficient by this age. Having said that, I had them from a younger age, and none of them were injured when I found them, so poor Marlene was probably a bit more traumatized. I'm so glad you agree that she's beautiful, Larry! Most of my friends who've seen her don't seem to understand what I'm talking about. I guess people are just pretty used to how feral pigeons look so they have trouble getting excited...
BTW, those are my pyjamas visible in the second picture - pink flanelette isn't really a part of my wardrobe!


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## Larry_Cologne

*Long upper beak; sharp claws*

All pigeons are individuals, we can't forget that. She may want extra reassurance. We all know how kids are. Some want a lots of reassurance and attention, and seem to never get started, then suddenly explode into a flurry of action. Others jump out right away, then come back in right away, then back and forth, and back and forth. As long as she can get you to feed her, she knows that she has the necessary food and means to survive. 

All rescuers are individuals, so no matter what advice is given and what others would have us do, some allowances have to made. You have to go by your gut feelings, your intuition, along with your common sense and logic and reasoning and the advice of others and your own research and the whole mixed bag of confusing and conflicting emotions.

Al advisors are individuals, and even when they are brilliant they can also be forgetful and leave something out. So we plod along sometimes, and have our successes and our failures, and and a range of experiences between. 

When to stop feeding? Well, If the pigeon survives and thrives, something must have been done right.

When is he beak too long or too short? I like to look at the extremes, then whittle away, pare off, use Occam's Razor, which states that in explaining any phenomenon, one should make as few assumptions as possible, or, all other things being equal, the simples solution is the best. Keep it simple.

If the hook of the upper beak is so long that even when the pigeon stretches its beak open as much as possible, but the tips of the beak still touch or overlap, then obviously something is wrong, something is two long. Other pigeons are not like that, so we can see that as being obvious, a given. If there is no upper beak at all, and it cannot pick up food, then it s too short. That is obvious. 

If the situation is either of the extremes stated above, then we have a dilemma. What to do? But if the situation is close to the middle, do we have a dilemma? In our minds we do, that's why we are asking questions. I have spent enough time in the past with this too long?/too short? question. If the beak seems too long to me, and I shorten it, have I shortened it too much? Should I have shortened it?

I have watched a young pigeon with a long hook to is beak have apparent trouble picking up round dried peas and dried soybeans and kernels of corn (from a well-known Belgian brand, _Versele-Laga_, of pigeon mix). I wondered if he would learn to feed himself. I noted that feral pigeons could open their mouths quite wide and swallow large chunks of dry bread and whatnot. 

I made sure he got enough nutritious food to eat, and things worked out just fine.

I filed the sharp claws of my first baby pigeon rescue (*Pidgiepoo*), shortening them 1-2 millimeters. He would trip and stumble when his claws snagged on the short nylon carpet. (Holding his claws up to some light, so that they were backlit, I could see where the claw started to become hollow. It started as a dark (blood-filled) cavity, starting at a point three or four millimeters from the tip of the claw (if I remember correctly) and getting wider or thicker further up the claw. 

I didn't bother filing the claws of the other pigeon rescues. My arms were often full of scratches, and sometimes the scratches would become slightly inflamed for a day or so, but I'm still here. The long-ish claws helped the pigeons sit on my shoulder or arm, until they became more coordinated and could maintain balance easier. Two of them had problems with their left feet (Pidgiepoo with an out-turned foot from leg spraddle, and *Wieteke* from a turned-under left foot from paratyphoid/pigeon-specific salmonellosis). 

The approach I eventually adopted, since my pigeon rescues had to live on the street, mix in with other pigeons, and compete somewhat for food, was to not make any physical changes to them simply for cosmetic reasons or simply because of any negligible effects they might have on my body, possessions, or apartment. Situations in which a handicapped pigeon, for example, has to spend his life in close company with humans, can call for other remedies and solutions.

PT member Victor has a pigeon, *Beaksley*, with a very long upper beak. (The name says a lot).

Larry


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