Disfigured Beak? & Over preening

[dannybrah92]

Hello, I adopted a 8 Year old congo grey recently and I am wondering if there is something that happened to his beak..

Picture is attached, it basically has this white line that you can see in the picture .. seems like it fell of or something at some point and grew back.. ?

 

 

Another side question: Is overpreening bad? He has a lot of feathers missing underneath his wings, around his neck and stomach that you can't see in this picture. He seems to preen those areas a lot. Is it possible it could be infected.

[danmcq]

The beak is normal for an adult grey. The beak constantly grows and as it does the line you see is from pieces of old beak chipping off. Plucking is not apparent in this photo either. It is the time of year they start molting out feathers,

[murfchck]

As Dan said, it is molting time and it may look like your bird should be bald going by the amount of feathers you will find but this will pass. My first experience with molting, i thought one of my dogs had gotten to a bird and i expected the worse, but after the panic ended i new that wasn't possible, lol.

Since you have just gotten your bird though, a visit with your avaian vet is in order. You said many feathers were missing from under the wings and "if" she is plucking there could be a medical reason why and only he/she could tell you for sure. Birds hide their illnesses so better safe than sorry.

[Mistyparrot]

Hello Dannybrah92.

As the others have said there appears to be nothing wrong here with beak or feathers. It is always a good thing to have your avian vet check any new adoption.

 

Steve n Misty

[BaileysPapa]

Birds beaks are made of the same material as our fingernails (keratin), but, grow in layers. Lafeber had an interesting article about beaks and how they grow, a week or two ago. Go to Lafeber.com and subscribe to their weekly newsletter. Very interesting topics and information. Plus they have a monthly raffle for $50.00 worth of Nutri-Berries, Avi-Cakes, etc.

[Timbersmom]

I will do that, thanks

[Cosmos_Friend]

I found that adding some perches that are abrasive for nail conditioning also helped Cosmo with the beak "layered effect". He will often rub the sides of his beak on them, keeping it clean.

 

~Rick