FINCHforum

Hi everyone

My gouldian hen has a over grown beak on one side(sort of a like a snaggle tooth) and I am wondering how I would trim it without hurting her. She's never had this problem before in the past. It just started like two months ago. I trimmed it the first time, but was so afraid of hurting her I didn't get much done. At first, I thought maybe it was mites but I doubt it. Could her problem be attributed to food and etc? Any advice would be appreciated. All my other gouldians are fine.

IF it makes a different or not, she just got done molting about the same time I noticed the over grown beak. If food is any issue or not....this is my daily diet I feed my birds : mixed seeds, grit (consisting of egg shells, charcoal, oyster shells), cuttle bone, fresh greens every morning(varies-dandelion, kale, romaine lettuce), spray millet, fresh water with iodine drops and I feed an mixture of home made egg food once to twice a week (mashed up egg with feeding formula and seeds).

Hi Dana. Not an expert by any means, but heard somewhere, cant remember where, that some folks give their birds java rock to rub their beaks on. My advice would be to throw the question out there to the gould specialists on the forum. Good luck.

Some of my birds seem to get an overgrown beak, and other not.
When it seems too long, I just catch the bird and use a fingernail clipper to clip the portion of the beak that sticks out beyond the other beak. Quite simple.

Well watch out for the tounge. I once had a bird stick out its tounge as I was about to clip its beak. That could have been an ugly situation.

Some times the birds will bite the clipper.
Then I just wait till they let go, then I continue on.

I have a zebra male with an overgrown beak as well. I don't know what caused it - I've had him for about 3 years and it only happened in the last year, in the first two he was fine.
I'm no expert but I have been using a dog nail clipper to trim his beak a few times. So far, it has worked well with no injuries or similar. Interestingly in recent weeks his beak has appeared normal again. I'm not celebrating ahead of time - maybe it will grow out "wrong" again further down the line. But right now, for all intents and purposes, it actually looks normal, which I would not expect after it grew like that for several months, so that's a pleasant surprise