Angry bird is back in peck condition with state-of-the-art new beak

In what is being hailed as ground-breaking surgery, a macaw named Max has been fitted with a 3D-printed prosthetic beak after getting into scuffles with other birds at his sanctuary.

A University of Pretoria (UP) team led by Prof Gerhard Steenkamp, a veterinary specialist in dentistry and maxillofacial, has given Max a new lease on life with the surgery that is believed to be the first of its sort in SA.

The blue and gold macaw from a bird sanctuary in the Western Cape received a fully functional 3D-printed prosthetic beak after getting into two scuffles with other macaws, during which his beak was first damaged, then ripped off.

The “fisticuffs” occurred in two separate incidents a few years ago.

Surgery was conducted recently at the Robberg Veterinary Clinic in Plettenberg Bay, with local vet Dr Brendan Tindall administering the anaesthesia, Steenkamp attaching the prosthesis, and former UP professor and specialist prosthodontist Cules van Heerden assisting.

“Max is doing well, and there have been no complications with the beak so far,” said Steenkamp.

The macaw’s owner, Trevor Glover, who established a bird sanctuary, said that within a day of surgery Max was eating solid pieces of food.

“This is quite a change from eating only soft food for years,” he said.

The procedure required collaboration with Bloemfontein’s Central University of Technology and industry partners and spanned nearly two years of work due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

The result is that Max is now eating normally with the 3D-printed titanium beak and has returned home.

“Max was brought to the sanctuary in 2017 after his owner moved overseas,” Glover said.

“He was aggressive towards the rescued birds and during hormone season at the end of 2017 he attacked a macaw that retaliated by biting his top beak and cracking the left side from top to bottom.”

Max was then placed in a transition aviary, along with another macaw that had an injured beak.

“But in the third week together, they got into a fight, with Max’s weakened beak ripped off completely,” Glover said.

Max, who is about 20 years old, and the broken-off beak were taken to Dr Tindall for treatment and evaluation.

“Brendan kept him, and over the following days was able to get Max to take in soft food. On Max’s return to the sanctuary, I began to feed him a hot, soft food mix of about 10 nutritious foods twice a day. His weight was monitored daily.

“He was hand-fed, but soon started lapping food up with his tongue. From then on, in addition to the soft food mix, he got a range of soft fruit along with almond sprinkles. As long as he could get to the food with his tongue, he could eat on his own.”

Then trouble struck a few months later as the bottom of Max’s beak continued to grow straight out, with nothing to wear it down.

“The bottom of the beak grew longer than Max’s tongue, preventing him from reaching his food,” Glover said.

He decided to take the bird to Onderstepoort Veterinary Academic Hospital for a CAT scan, to determine if there was enough remaining beak and bone for a prosthetic to be attached.

“The CAT scanner at Onderstepoort could not produce enough detail, so arrangements were made to have Max scanned by Dr Craig Muller of Eugene Marais Radiology,” Steenkamp said.

“I also took impressions of the remaining beak to make sure that the prospective printed beak would fit onto the remaining stump.

It is amazing what can be achieved with 3D printing. I am happy to have been part of the team that has given Max a second chance.

—  Prof Gerhard Steenkamp

Both the impressions and CAT scan were sent to Philip van der Walt of BunnyCorp, which proceeded to develop and draw the beak.

“Once we had the final drawings, the search began for someone to print the beak and make the particular screws for us.”

But then the pandemic brought things to a standstill for nearly two years.

“The beak was subsequently printed by the Centre for Rapid Prototyping and Manufacturing at Central University of Technology, using additive manufacturing and a drill guide in nylon,” Steenkamp said.

The Carl and Emily Fuchs Foundation funded the manufacture of the prosthetic beak, while the national department of science and innovation funded the MedAdd project, providing the latest additive manufacturing technology.

The job of creating the screws to attach the beak was contracted to Saspine, a Pretoria-based company that works in the human orthopaedic sector, which sponsored the specialised locking screws specifically developed for Max.

What made the beak different was that “we developed three anchors that passed through the printed beak, all the way across the beak and locked into the prosthesis on the far end”.

The surgery lasted just over an hour. 

“It is amazing what can be achieved with 3D printing. I am happy to have been part of the team that has given Max a second chance,” said Steenkamp.

Glover said Max has gone back to relatively normal behaviour — eating, flying and climbing as he did before the injury.