Michi, could it be, it is just mud ? (indeed, i hope so)
16:32 Kati got up, shaked her feathers and went to the toilette
i tried to enlarge her bill
Balistar, I don't know, but maybe. In your picture now the beak looks a bit better than when she came. That suggests it was mud. It was mostly on the left side of the beak.
Hello, Treia
You're welcome, Treia.
Thank you for your research, Anne!
Yes, Kati is still stressed.
Thank you, Michi.Michi wrote: ↑May 6th, 2019, 12:52 am Thank you for your research, Anne!
As you said, Katis beak was never smooth. All the years I know her with a non-perfect beak. But today it looks even worse than usual.
Indeed there's hardly an information about beak changes in wild birds. What you have found for parrots sounds a little reassuring. But for those and also for parakeets it is also written that it can come to beak diseases. Caused for example by parasites like itch- or mange mites or a poor nutrition.
On a page for budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) I found another interesting description. It is written in German and I try to translate:
"The wax skin (cere) of birds, as the skin on the nose is called in technical terminology, can change its surface structure due to various causes. A relatively frequent change of the wax skin in budgerigars is hyperkeratosis, which can be observed especially in sexually mature females. To put it simply, this is an excessively strong growth and thus a hornification of the wax skin. If the nostrils are not closed by hyperkeratosis, this change in the skin is not particularly dangerous for the affected animals. ......"
Source: http://www.birds-online.de/gesundheit/g ... rungen.htm
Surely one can't compare a budgie with a stork but I think the basic things are at least similar for all of them.
Regarding Kati: She looks as if she is in a state of permanent peeling.