What do you think?

[cottontiel]

Often times I find my 'tiel running around the bottom of his cage, picking at whatever's under the grate. At first I thought he was ingesting his own droppings, which I read could be due to a nutritional deficiency. This worried me of course, but upon closer inspection I notice that he's actually just trying to pick at any food he's dropped down there.

Maybe this behavior he is exhibiting is the desire to forage? He always has food available to him, but I can imagine it could get boring just eating from a bowl all of the time. What do you guys think?

 

[Comment]

My tiel also chews stuff on the bottom of the cage sometimes. When we first had her, she ate her poop, then we started to spread a handful of the paper pellets in the cage (like this Trixie Back2Nature Cat-Litter Recycled Paper Pellets Birds - Buy bedding online Miscota). We already used them for her playground and observed that she liked to chew them. So, in the cage we use kitchen paper that we change daily, and put some pellets, and sometimes qtips or small pieces of wood so she can chew them. This way she ignores her poops most of the time. Her favorite toys are stuff that she can chew AND destroy.