So, those of you who remember me from TC might remember that my bird Denali is rather injury-prone. I came home Saturday and found he had a hole in his beak.

He's been to the vet, and there's nothing to do but monitor it and make sure it doesn't get infected. Depending on its size when it grows out, we might attempt to plug the hole with dental filling. He doesn't seem to be in any pain (he was even beak-banging and singing Saturday night) and the wound only bled when the doctor was prodding it.

The cause of the injury is uncertain. It looks like a bird bite, but the only birds who could have bit him are other cockatiels, and the vet and I were uncertain whether cockatiels had the bite strength to inflict this kind of injury, and if so how they managed to get in a good bite, as it's in a difficult area to reach. While researching, all of the injuries seemed to be caused by much larger birds. There's no other wounds on any of them, no pulled feathers anywhere, and no other indications of a fight. We've moved him to his own cage to be safe.

The other option is he somehow managed to fall or bash into something. What he could have hit, I'm not sure. I checked all their toys and perches for exposed wires or sharp edges, but couldn't find any.

Here's some photos of the wound:



I don't know if you can tell from the photos, but it's a surprisingly deep cut. The vet said it would have been an extremely bad injury if it had occurred nearer the outside of the beak, because surgery might have been needed to re-anchor the beak. Thankfully his beak is still well-anchored on both sides, so it should heal fine on its own.

Partly I'm posting because I had a hard time finding any info or photos of beak wounds, so maybe this can help someone. Partly I'm posting to try and find some more info--does this look like the work of another cockatiel? Has anyone seen similar injuries in the past and can give me an idea of what could have caused it? Having 24 hour surveillance cameras trained on the birds is seeming like a better idea all the time.

Welcome to the group! This is very mysterious - it's hard to imagine how a cockatiel could have done this, with either beak or claw. You don't mention any other animals that might have access to the birds, so I assume that there aren't any. An attack by an animal would have caused a lot of panic anyway, and you'd probably see some knocked-out feathers.

Is there anything in the cage with a hard corner, for example a seed cup, that he might have hit his beak on? That's about the only thing that I can think of. I don't know enough about bird anatomy to be sure, but it looks to me like maybe the skin/tissue where the cere overlaps the beak might have been pushed upward, exposing a hollow area underneath, as opposed to an actual cut or gouge.

Hi, I do remember you! I have never seen something like that before. It's semi-circular, like the dent a small pipe would leave. A very small pipe-like thing or some other object with that shape.

Well, it's refreshing to get another opinion that it likely wasn't one of the other cockatiels--I've been worried all week they might need to be permanently split up. No other animal has access to that room; they share the room with parakeets and parrotlets but they're all kept separate unless I'm with them and the injury didn't occur when I was home.

They do have a couple of java wood perches that I've considered as the culprit, as they do have little protrusions he could have caught himself on. I don't think he could have hurt himself on a bowl, they're all round metal. I'm not sure if it's a cut or a scrape. It hasn't bled at all except when the vet was cleaning and examining it. It's deep, at least 1/4 inch, but whether that's how deep the cut was or if it was a shallower scrape that exposed his mouth or sinuses I can't say. The vet didn't mention.

If this WAS actually done by another bird, my best guess is that the attacker would have been at a right angle to the injured bird, and it was the attacker's lower beak that did the damage. The injury is shaped sort of like the edge of the lower beak. But I'm doubtful that a cockatiel can open its beak wide enough to attack another tiel this way, and have enough power to bite hard with its beak in this position.

Even if it had the strength, it would have left some mark with the upper part of the beak too, I think

It looks like it would be hard to get good leverage in that position. It might be theoretically possible to have the lower beak in a good position to do some damage while the upper beak rested in a position where the attacker couldn't use it effectively. But a collision with the knobby perch seems more likely.

I showed the picture to Susanne, who's a member of this group but doesn't usually post here. She thought it looked like he might have gotten his beak stuck in something, and jerked himself free, damaging the beak in the process. Is it possible that he might have wedged his beak between the cage bars?

Hmm, that's an idea. There's a perch he theoretically could've gotten stuck on. I'd have to look more closely at their toys in the morning to see if there's anything else. He has gotten his head stuck in stuff before...

It sounds like he's very creative at finding ways to get in trouble!