Trimming Beaks

So I was wondering how you go about trimming a beak that has already been overgrown. I don't know of any vets that will do it, and was wondering if anyone had any snazzy tricks that they've found or any simple procedure that could be self done.
And a follow down question is how do you keep a beak from getting overgrown. I've heard about putting cuttlefish bone in their enclosure and that does not seem to work, and hard foods like melon rinds, also doesn't work as it doesn't really seem to cause enough frictional abrasion on the beaks to keep them in check. Thank you Fauna community.

put a piece of limestone in there and they will do the job themselves. also offer the core from romaine lettuce and that will help as well. we have a 4 year old sully that was a rescue with a severely overgrown bottom beak. after a week of the limestone being in her enclosure, you can barely notice anything at all. good luck!

Sweet, thanks. I've never heard of using limestone. Do you know if that affects their GI tract or gives them any issues with kidney stones etc...

not that i'm aware of. my girl just rubs her beak on it until she's happy with the results. and a small amount of grit shouldn't hurt them.

Placing the tortoise's food on slate tiles can also help keep the beak trim. You can get 12" square tiles at a home improvement store for less than $2 each. Tortoises typically over-reach for their food and scrape their beaks on the tile.
I am not so sure about the limestone approach as I would be concerned about impaction issues, but it is technically going to be made of mostly calcium just like a cuttle bone. If I was going to use a piece of limestone, I would want the piece to be much too large to swallow and I would make sure to keep my tortoise very well hydrated just in case. Proper hyrdation goes a long way in preventing impaction, stones, etc.

I do cuttlefish bone and feed all my torts and turtles on clay dishes so they can wear down their beacks while eating. I have also trimmed a sulcata beak by myself before. It was a juvenile so it wasn't too difficult to control. We purchased a pair of nice human toenail scissors/cutters, not the normal clippers, but scissors that look almost like wire snippers. The sulcata didn't even notice it was so quick and painless, but you have to be extremely careful not to cut too far or to poke them in the mouth.

You could also take it to a vet the specializes in birds. The process is pretty much the same in both. They use a Dremel tool to file the beak back without the danger of cutting too far. I've never had to have beaks trimmed on my torts or my parrots, but I've seen it done many times.

Noelle

Dremel or clippers. It's actually quite simple.