white marks on beak?

[jjcool]

just a quick question thats always wondered.

 

my african grey parrot has white marks on his beak.

 

is this normal? what is it?

 

as some pictures i seen of others they are plain black beaks.

 

just curious here a picture i took.

 

[M2MM]

Looks like he has dander/dust imbedded in the striations on his beak. Nothing to worry about.

[dblhelix]

This looks very normal to me. As M2MM indicated, just some natural feather dander/dust in the beak striations. Nice picture.

 

Another thing to be aware of, the beak itself will "molt" from time to time. The beak is a living thing (like our finger nails) and at times an outer layer will flake off, exposing new beak material beneath. As this happens the area that will flake off becomes much lighter in color (almost looking like the bone colored beak of a TAG). Does not look like that is in any way happening at this time with your bird, but thinking about beaks brought this up in my thoughts.

[judygram]

Looks like he does some heavy chewing on stuff, he is definitely using his beak but that is normal so don't worry about it.

[danmcq]

It is normal as others have said. It does seem he is rubbing his beak on a sandy or cement perch to clean it, as all Greys do. This all the small scratches you see highlighted from the dander. :-)

[Pixel Parrot]

This looks very normal to me. As M2MM indicated, just some natural feather dander/dust in the beak striations. Nice picture.

 

Another thing to be aware of, the beak itself will "molt" from time to time. The beak is a living thing (like our finger nails) and at times an outer layer will flake off, exposing new beak material beneath. As this happens the area that will flake off becomes much lighter in color (almost looking like the bone colored beak of a TAG). Does not look like that is in any way happening at this time with your bird, but thinking about beaks brought this up in my thoughts.

 

Ancient thread incoming.

 

Thanks for that discoloration information! I have a 1 year old CAG and was wondering what was up with that. Very reassuring.