Hi,
Yes, this could be a sign of something underlying. At his age, he can be considered a senior. While finches can live 15-20 years, the more common age range is 5-10. His diet sounds great as long as the seeds are not a major percentage. Dr. Lamb did explain in the webinar about loose seeds not providing much in the way of nutrition. This is a difficult situation because it would take bloodwork to get an idea of what might be going on internally, but of course this is a finch and they can’t spare much blood. I can send this to Dr. Lamb to see if she has any insight, and will post here if she sends more information.
Reply from Dr. Lamb:
Hello!
Thanks for reaching out to ask. Sounds like this little guys gets a good variety of foods. Thats great! Now the beak question can be a little tricky without seeing him of course but my thoughts would go to the following possibilities- Previous trauma that caused slight malalignment of the beak and its not grinding down well; Underlying health problem like liver disease despite a good diet (there are several causes for liver disease and diet is only one of them); Being lazy and just not grinding his beak down well on his own. With an unknown age, he could be an older guy and sometimes as animals age liver disease can manifest just from the years of life’s challenges taking its toll on a very important organ that processes so much stuff. Also, we can see certain chronic infections that are slow to develop or kept in check for a long period of time before problems arise from them. Unfortunately we can see liver cancers as well but I will say that particular cancer is not so common in the finch (at least with the current data we have available anyway). It wouldn’t be a bad idea to get him seen by an avian vet to see if they could run a small blood panel or an x-ray. Not all vets are comfortable running blood on finches given their small size though so you might run into a road block there. I will run blood on the little guys but its very delicate and there have been times when I have looked at the patient and said, “Hmmm…you know, I dont think its a good idea we run blood on this little guy for x,y, or z problem so lets hold on that right now.” Radiographs can be helpful though because they can look for a large liver or other changes. If he were to have liver problems causing his beak to grow then you could get him on milk thistle which is a great supplement for the liver. However, you could take him to the vet, find all is ok with his liver and there is no mild misalignment and maybe you just have one of those older birds who has become a little lazy with time and just needs some help with routine trims now and then! I hope that helps some!
Dr. Stephanie Lamb
Thank you for asking Lafeber,
Brenda
