Cere injury

Question
I have a budgie, although my Chinese budgie seems a little different from the one I had in the states (eyes on the Chinese one are all black, the US one had white with the black iris).

Anyway...

Chi-Chi seems to have broken off part of her cere.  It does not seem to phase her, and it is not impeding her in breathing or anything.  It just looks like half of it cracked off, like losing a thick layer of it.

Is the cere like skin?  Does it just grow thicker?

Answer
Hi, Kyle.  Thanks for posting your questions.

You are correct.  The cere is an exposed area of skin that basically protects the nostrils.  In budgies/american parakeets, it also serves to identify the sex of the bird.  

I'm a bit concerned that your budgie's cere seems to have "cracked off."  Normally, the cere does not just crack off on it's own...I would not consider this to be normal.  There must be some reason for this to have happened.  For example, if there is more than one female budgie/parakeet in a cage, they sometimes fight with one another (sometimes to the death) over babies, nestboxes, food, mates, eggs, etc., and they will usually go for the head/eye area, often damaging (sometimes severely) the cere.  Sometimes, if a bird has experienced a cold or some other respiratory illness/disease, the cere could become damaged/sore/infected, which might explain why part of a cere would break away (after the illness/disease has cleared up).  Another reason could be an injury from something in/around the cage area.  If none of the above has occurred, I'd be a bit concerned why this has happened.  

I have also seem females who are in breeding condition (this is when the cere turns dark brown and becomes crusty/flaky) lose some top layers of their cere, but this is not very noticeable unless you are able to observe the bird's cere many times during the day.

I have raised hundreds of budgies/parakeets over the years, and I've seen many cere injuries (usually as the result of 2 females fighting).  In my experience, as long as their breathing is not impeded and there is no infection (or bleeding), they get along just fine.  I have not observed (in my experience) the cere regrowing as a result.  I have a parakeet right now who lost the fight between herself and another female several years ago (luckily, I was able to stop the fight or this keet would not be alive today...females will fight to the finish).  She lost her entire cere and one of her eyes.  As a matter of fact, one of her nostrils was also damaged, but she survives just fine with only one functioning nostril (I keep her in a cage with another handicapped keet, separate from other keets).  Therefore, I know from first-hand experience that it is possible that birds with these type injuries can thrive just fine without a cere.  

One of my parrot reference manuals, however, states that in a budgie/parakeet, a "thickening" of the cere is an abnormality (this is all it says in a section about the nostrils).  I would take this to mean that if this "thickening" looks as though there might be some type of injury or growth on the inside that results in the cere "protruding" on the outside, there might be something more serious going on inside that you might not be able to see.  You would have to judge this yourself, since you can observe the bird and I can't.  A cere does not grow thicker with time/age.  A cere grows commensurate with the growing bird, i.e., a baby bird's cere is small, but grows with the bird as the bird ages, but should not become "enlarged" as the bird ages.  If your budgie's cere is getting "thicker," perhaps you should consult an avian veterinarian to see if there may be some underlying cause.

It's really interesting what you say about a Chinese budgie.  I'll have to research this more.  I've seen many different types of parrots in other countries, but I don't recall seeing budgies with eyes like you describe (not that there weren't any, I may not have been very observant).  This is very interesting to me...if you have additional information about these, I'd be curious to learn more!  Is Chi-Chi the Chinese budgie you are referring to with the cere injury?  I'm curious if this species/subspecies of budgie might be different physically than English budgies/american parakeets (which might help to explain this problem).

If I can be of further assistance, please come back.  If you have information I can learn from, please let me know.

Chrys