It is not just humans who can do with the help of braces when growing up.

The University of Queensland's veterinary medical centre at Gatton has been fitting macaws with so-called birdie braces to help treat scissor beak.

Scissor beak, or wry beak as it is also known, is a condition where one side of the beak grows faster than the other.

It is most common in juvenile macaws and its cause is unknown.

If left untreated, the upper and lower breaks will overgrow and no longer meet each other.

Dr Bob Doneley is the head of avian and exotic pet services and associate professor at the University of Queensland's veterinary medical centre at Gatton.

He is one of only five specialists in bird medicine in Australia, treats about two macaws for scissor beak a month with a straightening procedure called trans-sinus pinning.

The "birdie braces" put enough tension on the beak to guide its growth and straighten the beak.

"I have seen birds actually starve to death because their beaks where so chronically overgrown they couldn't just get food anymore," Dr Doneley said.

"The sooner we diagnose and treat it the better the response.

"Birds that are fully matured their skull has fully calcified ... it's much harder to remould and reshape the beak.

"Some of those older birds might take six months of wearing braces.

"In a young bird because the bones have not fully calcified, we can remould them within two weeks."

The latest procedure, that took less than an hour, was performed just before Christmas and the patient was a 10-week-old blue-and-gold macaw brought in by a breeder.

"We drill the pin through the frontal sinuses so it's within the skull," Dr Doneley said.

"It's between the nostrils and the eye. There's a point there if I line it up perfectly I can put a pin straight through from one side to the other without doing anything other than going through a sinus and some very thin bones.

"It's no where near the brain or the eye. It's just sitting in a frontal sinus.

The procedure to treat scissor beak takes less than an hour. ( Supplied: University of Queensland )

"Then I turn one end of the beak down, the end of the pin that I bend down is the one opposite to the direction that the beak is turning. So if the beak is turning to the right, I bend the pin down on the left."

Dr Doneley then anchors the pin on the other side with a rubber stopper and a cap to stop it pulling through.

"It's anchored in place and I put a hook in the pin down the bottom where it's sitting near the tip of the beak and I attach the beak to the hook with a thick rubber bank ... so it's acting as a brace," he said.

"It's not pulling the beak over, it's just applying constant tension to the tip of the beak so as it continues to grow like a fingernail it turns the beak back to where it should be."

Dr Doneley said it was not a procedure that many vets could do.

He said anyone seeking the same treatment for a bird should contact an avian veterinary.