This is what Cosmo's cere looks like at the moment. Piccolo's is perfectly smooth. My feeling is that it's just dry and flaky as he is moulting and the weather is dry and cool. But I just wanted to run it by you all. Is olive oil okay or should I use canola oil?

Hmm.. it could have something to do with the moulting... But i don't really see any sign's of scaly face.

its molting in my opininion but wont hurt to use olive oil incase

Sometimes a dryness around the cere can indicate the beginnings of scaly face. But if its scaly face, then its in the extremely early stages... I would put it down to his moult for now. When his moult has finished, check again and see if its getting better or worse.

Sometimes a dryness around the cere can indicate the beginnings of scaly face. But if its scaly face, then its in the extremely early stages... I would put it down to his moult for now. When his moult has finished, check again and see if its getting better or worse.

 

Definitely NOT scaley face. Scale starts as tiny holes in beak and progesses to what looks like little channels down the beak and then to full blow scale around cere and edges of beak.

 

Budgies out of condition and moulting often have cere's that look like this and hens will often shed a whole layer of their cere as they go in out of condition.

Not scaly face in my opinion also

A quick once over rub down with a Q-tip (ear bud) soaked in any common cooking or vegetable or even mineral oil will clear off those flakes and give him a nice shiny gloss to boot.

 

Not really worth doing, but it would look nice Nothing to worry about from that picture at all.

Thanks everyone :thankyou: glad to know it's probably just dry flakiness.

if you are quite worried about scaley face, just move his feathers on the side of his beak were the beak meat the skin. If there is mites, the will be a coralish lump there