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Hi,

I have an eight year old, female, gray cockatiel named Josie. She has started to grow growths at her beak junction during the last 9 months. I have brought her to the vet repeatedly and our doctor does not have a clue. She is board certified and also works with herbs. We have tried some Chinese herbs and also red palm oil.

Generally what happens is that the growths grow (like little cigars though the last one was round) and then fall off. I have photos.

But I am very concerned because now I see something that looks like it is protruding from the center of her mandible.

Her diet is mostly organic seeds and sprouts, wheatgrass, sprig millet -which is not organic, rice cakes with seaweed, chi seed, etc. She gets out daily for about 3 hours. I have four other cockatiels (a family) that are all very healthy. This is the mama bird.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. I love this bird. I am heart sick.

Did they check for mites? Photos may help.

Here's a link to an article on scaly feet or scaly face mites (although no good photos of growths on beak)

http://www.avianweb.com/scaly.html

Note that I'm not saying this is what your tiel has, for sure. But it's something to discuss with your vet.

Would be good if you could post photos.

Is your vet an Avian Vet??

Sounds like some kind of squamous cell carcinoma.

As Monica indicated above pictures would be helpful.

This information might discern between what is important for your vet to consider when treating this carcinoma.

http://www.merckvetmanual.com/mvm/index.jsp?cfile=htm/bc/170229.htm

As always the first recommendation is consult with a Veterinarian, but what gives with all this herb stuff?

Horns on the beak sounds like mites. I've seen pics of budgies like that that are infested with mites. As your vet about ivermectin treatments.

I agree, it sounds like a really bad mite infestation. Please take the tiel to the vet for proper diagnosis and treatment, if it isn't mites, then the vet can tell you what needs to be done.

Scaly face mites are painful, and if left untreated, can deform the beak. The treatment is easy to do and fairly cheap as far as bird treatments go! You will also have to find out how to get the mites out of the items in the cage too, the vet can suggest a proper treatment.

No matter what, don't bother with the "mite protector" that the stores sell. They don't work and they poison your bird!

if you could post pictures that would help.