At least it was her own.
I wake up our house birds today as usual, by taking off their cage covers and yelling"let there be light!" Half-Note and Katie (the budgies–America’s Fun Couple!)want breakfast, natch, and now!
But first, there’s Her Psittacine Highness, Princess Maggie La Moo, Cinnamon Pearled Pipping-Teel. Of course, I’m talking to her while I pull her feed bowls from the cage, because Maggie’s a cheerful friendly vivacious girl, who loves a morning chat
Sometime in her nighttime, Maggie has deposited three or four cockatiel splat pancakes in one of her dishes. While I wash it iut I ask her, “Now what kind of a bird shits right in her food bowls?” And when I turned around, there she was grinning at me with her crookedy little beak–and munching on two–two of them I say! cockatiel caca cookies.
“Why, Maggie!” I say in a mildly shocked manner. Good thing I had her breakfast chow to distract her.
Should I be worried about this poo poo chewing thing? Like, is it a sign that she isn’t getting the proper nutrition? Will a nibble of her own poop hurt her? It certainly does* look* unappetizing, but then Maggie’s a bird, and they enjoy such delicacies as dry millet and each others’ gurge.
“That we can call these delicate creatures ours. And not their appetites!”
I thought all birds occasionally ate their refuse, if only for the grit to be re-used.
I was thinking some mineral may be lacking in their diet. Or grit.
It may also be an instinctive thing to replenish intestinal flora.
If I recall correctly, Floaty Gimpy has some expertise in this area (domestic birds), as does Colibri (rather more extensive). You may want to try reaching out to either one.
This behavior seems to be pretty common in cockatiels. (This blog post, however, is evidently not by someone with a lot of expertise.
As has been said, it could be due to some dietary deficiency. Or boredom. At least, it probably won’t hurt her.
Grit, huh. There might be something to that, because we never give her any grit at all. When I started keeping pet birds (lo these many years ago!), avian pet vets and experienced keepers mostly advised one to give one’s pet psitt very little grit, or none at all–their wee gizzards and crops are muscular enough to grind up their domesticated diet of seeds, sprouts and yummy nutritious pellets, and some birdbrains will display a ruinous craving for the stuff, and swallow enough grit to impact their crops and bust their bellies:(. :(Has the “wisdom” come back the other way recently? I haven’t seen a new issue of* Bird Talk *mag in over five years so I may be a titch out of touch.
Grit is for deputy U.S. marshals. True grit.