FINCHforum

I just noticed that my female Green Singer's beak seems to have grown at the tip and looks like a sharp, curved pin at the end. Is this normal or are we supposed to trim their beaks once in a while. Or are they supposed to file down their own beaks somehow? Or should I just leave it alone and let nature take care of itself?
Tracey

You can do a search here for beak trim (trimming). Here's just one of the threads on this topic.

http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=17498

My GS have the same sharp curved tip to their beak. In their case it has always been like that. It hasn't grown further. In fact neither their nails nor their beak have grown over the past several months. I suspect the sharp curved beak is normal. Kind of goes with their personality. Also, when I took out the nesting material the female used her beak to try to pry apart wicker baskets, wooden perches etc. She also used it effectively on my finger when I had to catch her once.

I use terracotta dishes to serve their daily fresh food on. The rough texture has helped keep their beaks down. I have a fire finch and peruvian ground doves with long beaks, but they are perfectly capable of eating and drinking, so I don't see it being a problem. I'd be quite paranoid about beak trimming, especially because I've heard horror stories if you do it wrong.

I would allow the birds time with cuttlefish bone a porous rock or a perch which has sand paper feel to it. These are more natural ways of letting your finches trim and tidy their beaks without resorting to the stress of filing or trimming beak let alone the dangers if it is done wrong. If the beak isn't hindering them in any way I would go natural and let them get it back to where it needs to be. Maybe if you can get your hands on some Palm leaves which are safe for birds and peg it to the cage, they sometimes like to strip this for nesting and fun this will also help as the stripping motion will slowly wear the beak down abit not as good as my previous objects stated but will still be a good addition and worst case it will still look good in the cage if they don't touch it. As for a good Palm to use I will leave it up to people in your area to give you names as I may give you a wrong name which could be fatal in the end.

They're supposed to file down their own beaks and nails. Trimming is not the long term answer and doesn't look as nice as the naturally filed down beaks and nails.

I tried the tera cotta dishes, small plant dish from Home Depot, and they did not work for my birds. I still had to trim the beaks and claws. The terra cotta dishes is just not rough enough and they don't spend enough time on it to wear thing down.

Gary if nails are a major issue try some rough tree branches as perches along with one perch that has the sand paper feel as these work best but I also have to trim nails on certain birds like my chestnut breasted these birds nails seem to grow very quick, I also have Palm branches as well as reeds to help wear down nails. As for beaks what I posted earlier has all worked for me. To me terra cotta doesn't seem to be course enough to really help alot.