Animal Eating its Poo

User Question
I brought home a baby 'keet from a "bin o' budgies" on December 9th. Now that she's home, she still appears as healthy as I had first hoped. The one thing that she does do is nibble on her poop. I can't tell for sure but I think she is eating some/all of it sometimes. It isn't an ongoing, constant obsessive behavior like she's sick. She just goes to the bottom of her cage and starts nibbling once or twice a day, and eats/nibbles the poop on her perches or cage bars as soon as it dries. I'm pretty sure this has just started in the past week. She eats a diet of mainly millet seeds (I tried to ease into more nutritional food and she refuses, picks it out and throws it onto the bottom of the cage) and I'm giving her vitamin supplements in her water to make up for whatever vitamins she may be missing out on due to her diet.

Is she eating her poo because she's not getting the right nutrition? Or is this normal behavior?

Thank you so much for your guidance! Your 'keets are lovely!! =)

Lisa's Answer
Animals like people tend to eat things they feel have nutrients for them. When I was a toddler I ate dirt, and the doctors figured out that I had an iron deficiency and the dirt I was eating had iron in it.

I wouldn't put any supplements in the water - it's critical for a bird to have fresh water daily and vitamins can cause the water to breed bacteria and get slimy. The fresh water is far more important health-wise than the vitamins in it would be.

I have info on the site about how to introduce fresh veggies to the bird - start with lettuce and that is usually an easy sell if you show the bird how yummy it is by eating it yourself. Then move on to the other treats. Birds definitely need more than just seed, and your keet may be confused about what constitutes 'other food' in its world.

Also you can get a cage that lets the poops fall through a grate. In my cage, the poops fall onto a lining beneath a grate, so the keets can't get to it even if they go to the bottom of the cage.

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