Pellet wasting

[Siobhan]

Rocky has this thing he does, when we go out of an evening, where he scoops every pellet out of his dish and flings them all over his cage. He doesn't do this when we go to work during the day, only when we go out in the evening. We seldom go out, by the way. It's not like we leave him to entertain himself night after night. We have band practice once a week and we're gone for two or three hours and sometimes we go out to eat and are gone for an hour or so.

The only conclusion I can draw is that he wants me to come back and find his dish empty and feel guilty that I left him locked up to starve to death while I went off somewhere without him.

 

[noodles123]

Mine does this when annoyed or attention seeking lol
Maybe its like when a teen storms around the kitchen rejecting all of the food and proclaiming "THERE IS NOTHING TO EAT" (and continuing to open and shut the pantry/fridge etc) lol

 

[Betrisher]

Mine do it too (both Rosetta and the Beaks), so I don't think it's just a cocky thing to do. I solved it by beggaring myself to buy not one, but *two* of those perspex Seedmate feeding boxes. Hand on heart, they don't prevent every seed or pellet from hitting the ground, but they do make a huge difference.

Years ago, hubby actually constructed a custom perspex food box for the Beaks (he made it longer to compensate for their longer reach) and *that* resulted in a nearly-clean cage floor. Since then, though, the cost of perspex has sky-rocketted and it's actually cheaper to buy the ready-made ones.

Cockatoos are just natural rummagers, I reckon. The wild ones rummage around in the soil looking for grubs or they rummage around in tree-bark doing the same thing. On our honeymoon, hubby and I came upon an enormous flock of galahs in the middle of the road. They were feeding on a large grain-spill and there were thousands of them. It was interesting to note that most of these galahs were doing the rummage-thing: tossing the grain in every direction with their beaks and virtually showering each other in wheat seeds as they dined.

 

[Scott]

Most of mine do as well. Spoiled brats, they never had to work a day in their lives and have no clue the value of a dollar!

 

[Inger]

Most of mine do as well. Spoiled brats, they never had to work a day in their lives and have no clue the value of a dollar!

Can you at least get yours to do some house work? I can’t even get Bumble to run the vacuum. Ugh.


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[Siobhan]

The most work I get out of Rocky is that he supervises ME while I do the work.

 

[Betrisher]

Speaking of vacuums, is it just my lot or do other birds love the sound of the vacuum cleaner? Back when they lived indoors, the Beaks would follow me around as I vacuumed, perching on the hose and climbing down to the cleaner head to work out where the noise was coming from. When I turned it off, they'd get most distressed, flapping about and squawking until I turned it on again.

Roll on a few years and Rosetta arrived. She did the same thing! Good grief! Why? What is it about vacuum cleaners? Now, the birds live just outside my back door, not three feet (as the parrot flies through the wall) from the very chair I'm sittin' in. I use a garden blower-vac to clean up their area and, you guessed it, when I'm blower-vaccing, all three of them are down on their respective cage floors following me round like little magnets!

Please let me know it's not just us! :22_yikes:

 

[rangerktc1]

Yeah my umbrella is the same way. She does it when she wants attention or is agitated. When she wants to eat, she takes them one pellet at a time. I've lessened the amount I put in her feed cup to alleviate the loss.