poop eating keet

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The text above is a follow-up to ...

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my budgee is 2-3 yrs old, he's hand tammed and he's able to roam at will. We noticed he's eating his own poop and has recently fallin ill he has been perscribed Novo trimel and we are on week 2 of the presrciption he seems to be getting better but then i find him eating his poop and then the next couple days he's falling ill again. How do i stop my budgee from craving POOP. P.S i thought it may be his way of cleaning but even right after i clean his poop up he's over there looking for leftovers. eeeeeewwwww!
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Hi, Dustin.  Thanks for posting!

What type of daily diet is your budgie on?  Poop eating, also called copraphagia, can either be the result of improper diet where certain minerals and vitamins are missing or can just be a nasty habit the bird developed for some reason.  Since the bird gets sick from eating it's own feces and the birdie vet placed your budgie on antibiotics, your budgie is excreting (pooping out) harmful bacteria.  There's most likely something else going on inside your budgie making him ill, then he poops, eats the harmful bacteria making himself sick.  I can help you get your keet on a healthy diet (an all-seed diet is a very poor diet for any bird, and I suspect your keet is on an all-seed diet?).

The way to stop your budgie from eating his feces is to put him in a cage where he can't get to his own feces.  The ideal cage is one where feces drop through wire on the bottom of the cage to a container/tray of some sort underneath (where you can slide the tray in/out).  Then all you have to do is empty/clean the container.  Your keet won't be able to get to his feces through the wire on the cage bottom.

If you can't afford to buy another cage you can always add this extra cage wire to the bottom of the existing cage in order to keep your budgie and his feces separate from each other!

Chrys

RE: Yes my budgee is on a diet of MOORE"S no feather loss and we've just started feeding him HARTZ parakeet gourmet diet vitamin rich vegetables, fruits, seeds and grains which he's picking out what he doesn't like. If you could help me get P'd {my bird} on a proper diet that would be appreciated.   As for the wire in the cage idea it doesn't apply here because P'd is free to roam at will and refuses to goto the lower half of his 5ft cage, it's on things like the ceiling fan etc, that he eats his feces. So it's either take away his freedom or fix his eating habbits, Would this be fair to say?  Also the antibiotics the vet put P'd on! I feel as though it's helping but if this is week 2 of 3 shouldn't P'd be totally better by now he's still shivers/tremors and i have him in a room that's at about 25-26c and the rest of the place is 23-24c could he still be cold?
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Hi again, Dustin.

Diet - What you need to do is to start offering your keet a variety of healthy human foods.  I recommend you start with cooked brown rice with a variety of veggies mixed in (soft food mix).  You can also offer corn bread, multi/whole grain breads, healthy cereals (no sugar), etc.  Offer this food to your keet each and every day (not everything every day...pick something different each day).  If your keet has never seen this type of food before, he won't eat it at first because he doesn't recognize it as food, but keep offering it to him each day (of course, remove it before it spoils if he doesn't eat it).  Also, you should mix 75% seed/25% pelleted food and provide it the first week.  The second week, provide 50% seed/50% pelleted food.  The third week and thereafter, provide your keet with a dish containing 25% seed/75% pelleted food.  When you offer your keet the soft food mix, remove all seed from it's cage.  Do not allow your keet access to any seed for the period of time you offer him the human food.  A bird will normally always pick the seed over anything else, so the seed can't be available at the same time you are trying to get your keet to eat other types of food.  Any seed, it doesn't matter what brand name, is not a good diet.

Based on your situation, you're going to have to make a decision as to whether you want a sick bird all the time or one who doesn't eat it's feces and is well.  In order to keep your bird from eating it's feces, you have to ensure it eats the proper foods so it won't eat it's feces and/or not allow your bird to come into contact with it's feces.  It's not necessarily safe for your bird to have free roam of your home anyway and it is not sanitary for you or your family either to live with bird feces all over the place!  If you don't want your bird to eat it's feces, you need to do something, one way or the other, about it.  Either clean the feces off things every day or confine your bird at least most of the day to a place where he can't get to his feces.  The decision is yours, but you can't have it both ways!  Controlling a bird doesn't mean you have to take it's freedom away.

Sometimes birds have to go on 2 or 3 rounds of an antibiotic before they are completely well.  Your vet will let you know when it's OK to take your bird off the antibiotics.  If you can't control the feces eating, your bird may never be well.  The length of time antibiotics are required depends on the type of bacteria your bird has and the severity of the illness.  If your bird continues to eat it's feces, the antibiotics are worthless.  

When a bird shivers/tremors, it is usually regulating it's own body temperature.  Does not necessarily mean the bird is cold.  If your bird is cold, it will be huddling, trying to find a warm spot, perhaps fluffing it's feathers up some, etc.  25-26c should be warm enough for your keet, especially if he has free roam.

Chrys    

ok i've since separated P'd (my budgee) from his feces and he's showing vast improvements i've started putting pellets in his food and he's just separating the 75% to 25% ratio. I do intend on continuing but when do you know if P'd will take to the new food. Also a problem i've neglected to mention, P'd hasn't been trimming his beck and the vet trimmed it down once and he's still letting it over grow he has 3 cuddle bones to choose from any ideas

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Hi again, Dustin.

I'm glad your budgie is getting better!

If your budgie hasn't ever had pelleted food before, he doesn't recognize it as food and, thus, won't eat it right away.  You can continue with the pellet/seed ratio or do what I do with my birds.  When I feed my budgies their soft food mix every day, I remove any pellet/seed mix from their flight cage until they've eaten their healthy food mix (which only takes about a half hour).  When they've eaten their healthy food, they get their pellet/seed mix.  If they don't eat their soft food mix, they don't get their seed mixed in with their pelleted food.  When seed is available, most birds will not eat other food in their cage.  This is because seed to birds is like candy to a human child.  It tastes good so they like it, but it isn't good for them.  Give your budgie some more time to recognize pellets as food.  You may have to put pelleted food out for him only and only offer him the seed mixed in once per day.  You'll have to try different things with your budgie until you find what works.  Some birds are picky about their pellets, too.  Some won't eat the colored pellets, some won't eat small pellets, some don't like Zupreem brand, some don't like Pretty Bird brand...you have to experiment.

A beak overgrowth is usually related to vitamin/mineral deficiencies...unhealthy diet.  Perhaps this problem will go away with your budgie on a healthier diet.  If not, consult your veterinarian on the issue...poor diet could result in liver other organ problems...avian vet could possibly pinpoint the exact problem with the beak overgrowth.  Cuttlebone is meant to be a supplemental source for calcium, not necessarily for beak trimming.  If your bird doesn't need supplemental calcium, it won't use it's cuttlebone.  There are special blocks or perches you can buy specifically to help your bird keep it's beak trimmed down.

Chrys