bugie eating droppings

Question
hi
when i was playing with my budgie, he went to the bottom of the cage, picked up a hard dry piece of poop, and started to chew on it! i was really discusted so i kind of scared him into spitting it out
i thought that it was because i didnt change the newspaper enough so i changed it immediately. i usually change it once a week, bcause he has a really big cage. why did he do this?
and im taming my budgies right now, and when they get on my finger, which is really rare, their feet are hot! is this normal??
also, my female budgie is acting kind of weird. i am taming her, i should add. she has no problem with my hand near her, but when i push her bellie to get her on my finger, she freaks out and fly away. and sometimes randomly, and i put my hand near her, she jumps on my finger then jumps off. its all very erratic to me. my other budgie, who chewed on poop, is very well with climbing on my finger when i push his bellie.he actually stays still while my female one doesnt. any reason?

Answer
Hi, Rocky,

Your bird has a condition called copraphagia.  You can Google this word for more information.  It's usually the result of a vitamin/mineral deficiency.  Is your bird on an all-seed diet?  If so, this is likely the problem.  Your birds need to be on a healthy, nutritious diet of a variety of human foods, as well as pelleted bird food, feeding seed sparingly.  

Your bird's body temperature is higher than yours, so their feet usually do feel warm when touching our skin.  Their body temps increase if they are real active and flying around, scared, etc.

Your female may be more frightened of you than the male and this is why she is behaving differently than the male.  Also, if you are trying to tame these birds togehter at the same time, the female most likely will go to where the male happens to be at the time.  You may need to tame them separately in separate rooms where one can't see the other during a taming session.  Birds prefer other birds to humans so you may have difficulty taming either of them.  The female may have had more bad experiences with humans and she is more frightened of humans than the male.  Keep working at it!  You may want to consider trimming your bird's wing flight feathers, as this often helps in taming and keeping them tame once they are tame.  They can't get away from you as easily and you can control to some extent where they go, their mobility, etc.

Chrys