Beak and Nail Trimming/Filing

[Shezbug]

Emery boards are generally made of some type of cardboard, glue and grains of sand.

They are basically made out of the exact same stuff that uneducated or inexperienced bird owners place over their horrible dowel perches. Sandpaper covers for perches used to be terribly common when I was a kid and most people used them- birds would chew them all the time but the biggest danger they posed were for the birds feet as not an awful lot of birds suffer from pica so any sand, glue and paper ingested was generally minimal.

 

[GraceBirds]

The chance your budgie died of stress or an inability to breathe while being held is a much more likely reason for the death than the grabbing of the emery board.

Many of us use them without any issues and have done so for many years.

My macaw got hold of two of his huge acrylic nail emery boards early this morning and chewed them, peeled them, snapped them (they are in the bin as they are not usable now) into bits and he has done this many times before without a problem.

I don't think she died of stress, I've clipped her nails and filed her beak before. She was also held very loosely while filing, so she couldn't of died from inability to breathe.
The only other thing I could think of was maybe she had some unknown problem that she was hiding from us. I know they hide their symptoms and signs of illness so as not to appear weak or vulnerable. It might have been just a coincidence that she died close to the timing of her beak filing, but it made me scared to use emery boards on my birds.
Thank you for your assurance of the safe usage of emery boards.

 

[Shezbug]

I don't think she died of stress, I've clipped her nails and filed her beak before. She was also held very loosely while filing, so she couldn't of died from inability to breathe.
The only other thing I could think of was maybe she had some unknown problem that she was hiding from us. I know they hide their symptoms and signs of illness so as not to appear weak or vulnerable. It might have been just a coincidence that she died close to the timing of her beak filing, but it made me scared to use emery boards on my birds.
Thank you for your assurance of the safe usage of emery boards.

It does sound more like coincidence if you’d held her and done the same thing before without issue.
I hope you find some emery boards you’re comfortable with- given how long they last with my brats I just buy the cheapest and most suitable ones for big bird nails- I don’t ever touch beaks as my three birds all do a wonderful job of caring for their own beaks.