A bit of my tortoises beak came off?

[TortoiseGurl]

Earlier I was feeding my tortoise a dandelion, and she took too big a mouthful so she started making weird head movements, I helped her out a bit by pulling the dandelion out of her mouth incase she choked. She calmed down a bit, then carried on doing the weird head movements, then FINALLY took a gulp and I heard this crack, and infront of her was a piece of beak, so I think because it was exactly the same colour, was hard etc, it was smallish, but not really small. I look around her face a bit and I can't see any visible differences, and she didn't seem bothered, infact, she went to sleep.

Will it harm her in any way? Will it grow back?

 

[Yvonne G]

Hi Dana:

If you can't see where it came off from, then you have nothing to worry about.

 

[TheSnidr]

This has happened a few times to me - I see a piece that definetely came from Speedy's mouth, I freak out, and then I notice he actually looks better without it. His beak grows a little too fast, so I guess this is just nature's way of trimming it.

 

[dmmj]

The beaks are basically like human fingernail, no nerve endings so it does not hurt for them to be cut or in your case broken off. It will grow back like fingernails.