By Samantha Khela
Getting a beak trim done for your bird can be a bit daunting, but for some birds it’s absolutely necessary to be done. A bird’s beak is made of keratin and grows continuously throughout its life. As a result, the beak must be constantly ground down—whether that’s naturally through the bird’s daily activities or with a beak trim from their human counterparts—in order to have a healthy quality of life.
Bird Beak Maintenance
In most cases, a healthy bird’s daily activities will help naturally keep the beak ground down and kept at its optimal shape and size. These activities include foraging, chewing and eating. Generally birds like to rub their beaks on rough surfaces, which also help mitigate the beak’s shape and size.
Providing things such as natural wood perches and cuttlebones, can keep bird beaks in good shape. Nuts and other hard, safe foods for birds would also help with the natural wear and tear of the bird’s beak.
On rare occasions, a bird’s beak might become overgrown or oddly shaped. A lot of the time overgrown beaks are due to some type of injury that has happened in the past, certain medical conditions in birds, or the bird’s lifestyle which prevents the natural wear of the beak. As a result, a beak trim done by you or someone experienced is needed.
The Beak-Trimming Process
Unless you’re experienced, you should never attempt to trim your bird’s beak yourself. To do so could risk injury to both yourself and your pet.
If you notice your bird’s beak looks too long, uneven, or otherwise abnormal, the first thing you should do is schedule an appointment with an avian vet. They will need to properly diagnose your bird to determine the cause for the beak abnormality. In some situations, you’d also need to address an underlying medical condition in addition to having the vet do a beak trim for you.
On the other hand, you can go to a trusted avian care like Bird Sitting Toronto – we do offer beak trimming to any of our small/medium birds in the GTA area. Just shoot us as message!
When your bird gets its beak trimmed, most times a Dremel Tool is used to finely ground the beak. By filing the beak in this fashion, it mimics very much the natural grounding of the beak during a bird’s normal activities. In some cases where the beak is quite long, a combination of a nail clipping tool and the Dremel tool is used.
Once the beak trimming is completed, more often than not your bird is quite stressed out after the session. It is recommended that you return your bird back home and place their cage in a quiet, dim space. It may also help to reassure your pet in a calm voice, but avoid interacting with your pet outside of this. Generally a pet bird wants to be left alone after a visit to the vet or to your trusted avian care. Be sure to provide any food and water that it needs, and let your bird return back to its normal demeanor on its own after the procedure is complete.
