Filing beak?

[Glosseryck]

I don't know if I should file my torts beak. He's a male adult Greek, exact age is unknown as he was released by a previous owner. What I do know is that he's been about the same size for 8 years.

I'm new to keeping a tort, I've had him for less than a year. He eats from a terracotta plate with a piece of slate underneath, and I thought that would keep his beak the right size. I feel like it's grown a bit the last few months, should I file it or does it look good? He doesn't have much trouble eating, he gets everything in his belly but sometimes I feel like his beak gets a bit in the way. (My phone has a terrible camera, please ignore that, he's also outside of his cage purely for the photos)the white spots on his head are calcium, he's a messy eater.

 

[wellington]

Looks fine to me.
If you chop up some of his food into tiny pieces and lay them single layer on the terracotta saucer, he will rub his beak more on the dish and it should file it down some over time. Do this with a small amount of food and then when he has finished it give him his normal amount in the full size.
You do feed more items then just the lettuce correct? Lettuce like that is mainly water with little to no nutritional value. The tuffer darker green stuff is a better choice and the ripping of the leaves will also help his beak.

 

[zovick]

I don't know if I should file my torts beak. He's a male adult Greek, exact age is unknown as he was released by a previous owner. What I do know is that he's been about the same size for 8 years.

I'm new to keeping a tort, I've had him for less than a year. He eats from a terracotta plate with a piece of slate underneath, and I thought that would keep his beak the right size. I feel like it's grown a bit the last few months, should I file it or does it look good? He doesn't have much trouble eating, he gets everything in his belly but sometimes I feel like his beak gets a bit in the way. (My phone has a terrible camera, please ignore that, he's also outside of his cage purely for the photos)View attachment 339689the white spots on his head are calcium, he's a messy eater.View attachment 339688

I have seen much worse, but it is slightly overgrown, so if you can remove about 1/8" or so of the longest part just below the nose it would not hurt. After that, feed it on a hard surface as Wellington suggested to help keep it it good shape.

 

[Glosseryck]

Looks fine to me.
If you chop up some of his food into tiny pieces and lay them single layer on the terracotta saucer, he will rub his beak more on the dish and it should file it down some over time. Do this with a small amount of food and then when he has finished it give him his normal amount in the full size.
You do feed more items then just the lettuce correct? Lettuce like that is mainly water with little to no nutritional value. The tuffer darker green stuff is a better choice and the ripping of the leaves will also help his beak.

Thank you for the input! When he eats lettuce, it's only romaine. He gets very small amounts of kale, and sometimes a bit of brussel sprouts since I personally eat them a lot. He gets small amount of carrots sometimes, and cucumbers are a favorite snack but very rare. When I have any tort safe veggies at home he gets some. The problem with him is that he's a very picky eater, which might be because he only ate pellets before I got him. For all we know, he had never eaten a veggie before except iceberg lettuce. He refuses to eat bell peppers, tomatoes are sometimes fine, he refuses to eat all florals I've tried as well. Right now I'm trying to train him to eat more variation, but he's a very stubborn tort! During the summer he goes outside a lot but he doesn't really eat anything, no grass or dandelion greens. But I do give him vitamins on his food every other day and calcium the other days to try to better his diet. I have seen some improvement the last couple of weeks, so I'm hoping he'll eat more foods in the future!

 

[Glosseryck]

I have seen much worse, but it is slightly overgrown, so if you can remove about 1/8" or so of the longest part just below the nose it would not hurt. After that, feed it on a hard surface as Wellington suggested to help keep it it good shape.

Thank you! I'll do just that.

 

[wellington]

Do not feed tomato. You will have to be tuffer then him. Give more dark greens. Chop it up small also chop up the romaine small and mix together so he has to eat the better stuff to get the not so good stuff. As he eats this, start adding more of the good and less of the not so good until he is eating only the better stuff. It takes persistence and slow moving on your part.
The right kind of pellets also is not a bad thing yo feed as long as its part of a varied diet. Mazuri is a good choice. The pellets help add stuff that may be missing in the regular diet.