Amazon eating her own droppings

[LakeDesire]

Hi all! Yesterday, and again today, I noticed my red-crowned amazon munching on her own dried droppings. She growled both times and got pissed when I tried to take her "food" away! Is eating poop normal for birds?

She has a grate on the bottom of the cage, but her cage has a playstand on top with no grate, so she can get to the droppings on her newspaper up there before I replace the paper.

 

[Kalidasa]

My budgies sometimes do it, only if they're dry, and they're extremely healthy.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

My friends cockatiel eats is own dried droppings, I do not think this is a good thing for them to be doing at all! It's waste from the body and bound to be full of nasties.

If I had a playstand where the birds could get to the poop I would keep a roll of paper towels nearby and wipe of the new poop everytime I walked by.

 

[LakeDesire]

My budgies sometimes do it, only if they're dry, and they're extremely healthy.

Do you mean that your budgies only eat their droppings when their health is top shape?

 

[Kalidasa]

No, I mean my budgies are very healthy, I've had them for years, and I've occasionally seen them do it. Not only that, I've seen budgies in the past do it. It happens, you can't monitor every piece of poop that comes out. Birds don't have a "gross" sense. They just do it sometimes. My GCC never does it, to my knowledge. It's not like the budgies do it all the time, it's just that I've seen them do it before. You usually see small birds do it, I've never seen a larger bird do it.

 

[LakeDesire]

I agree animals probably don't have our same sense of gross factor. My parents' dog used to eat cat poop out of the litter box and (sorry for the TMI) and used menstrual products out of the bathroom trash. Compared to that, Henry eating her own droppings is not so gross! I was just wondering if it meant something was wrong with her, though...

 

[Kalidasa]

If the bird is doing it every day, it could be a mineral deficiency, or, he could just be enjoying it. Birds, they're nuts!

 

[Jtbirds]

This is actually something noted by many vets and people called coprophagia.. Working in the vet industry we hear about it a lot and there are many reasons for it I will not list them as there is plenty of information on the Internet about it and why.

 

[MonicaMc]

I once saw Charlie, my mitred, go after a fresh piece of his own crap.... he thought it was nasty and flung it! And that was the only time I saw him mistake his own poo for something to eat! LOL


There's a lot of theories as to why they do it.... some think it is to get minerals or nutrients that have passed through their system so as to better assimilate them (i.e. missing nutrients from their diet), others, well? You can try all these supplements or diet changes, but it's still not entirely clear as to why.

 

[wjgonzalez]

Coprophagy, is not necessarily abnormal, aberrant behavior. In herbivores that are not ruminants, it is a form of pseudorumination. Apes do it. Rabbits do it. It is rare for birds to do it, and probably indicates a deficiency in the diet. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coprophagia

 

[MollyGreenCheeks]

Here is some information I found on Birdchannel.com

Cockatiel Eating Poop

 

[MonicaMc]

With as often as I've heard about it, I don't think it's rare... but it's certainly gross!

 

[wjgonzalez]

And the following is true (and, well, gross): DailyTech - Japanese Make "Delicious", Nourishing Steaks From Human Feces

 

[Kalidasa]

^^ ew! I've now officially heard it all!

 

[HalfInsane]

Yesterday Pixel pooped on the coffee table, turned around, tried eating in, then proceeded to violently bob her head and gag... yup. She's a genius.

Also, that link above... I'm just going to add that to my list of things I only wish I could un-learn