What to do about my cockatiel who eats her own poop?

What kind of cage is she in that her poop is accessible to her, or is she just eating what catches on the wires?

I talked to a friend who has cockatiels. In addition to scrubbing the cage each day she suggested the bird could be bored. You could try a variety of appropriate toys, changing them out to add variety, and try to teach her some tricks.

I theenk you need a beeger cage.

I think maybe you aren’t cleaning the cage often enough, there shouldn’t be that much available poop. I hate scrubbing the perches so I put in tree branches, they when they get dirty just pitch them and put in fresh. It keeps the bird from getting bored as well because they like to pick at the bark and nibble on the fresh leaves. Here is my baby girl.

Aw, cute, @rooeytoo!
If the cage has a wire grate for the bottom, use it… if not, keep it clean. With my budgies, I cut a bunch of pages of newspaper to fit, then I can easily remove the top one to clean out the poop and all the recreational food bits. (Broccoli is really fun!) When I have had cockatiels, they really liked toys with leather bits hanging off. My budgies really like seagrass and yucca stems, cockatiels would probably like them too.
Pfff- spell checker doesn’t like ‘cockatiel’.

I hardly let the poop build up too much but I also put the newspaper under the grate so it’s not accessible to her. She does try to nibble whatever catches onto the grate, that’s when I shoo her away and clean it. Being bored indeed might be the cause. Her cage is pretty roomy so I’m not particularly worried about that. I will try the treebark thing you suggested thank you so much!

Actually my budgies do nibble at the droppings on their perches(manzanita branches) but I’m not sure they actually eat it; it seems more like ‘what’s this doing on here?’ They have a grate because they wouldn’t stop shredding their paper. They also have toys, a coral mineral block(which they seem to scratch themselves on rather than nibble) and I give them the aforementioned recreational food too. I haven’t tried fresh branches, mostly I have oak trees which I have read are not so good to use.

@ccrow – I always try to pick branches from trees where I see birds. There are a lot of oak trees where I live now and the cockatoos seem to munch on the acorns. Why are they not so good to use? I usually choose gum tree branches because I like the way they smell and she seems to like them as well or from some berry tree out back, that is full of all kinds of birds. I know you have to be careful to not take branches from trees which have been sprayed recently.

Eh, some lists say all oak is bad; some say just the leaves and bark, the wood is ok… it’s the tannins that are bad. If I was going to use fresh branches, a good part of the reason would be to let the birds have fun chewing the heck out of them. Not to mention I’m not keen on peeling all the bark off! They also say red maple is bad (other kinds are good) and I’m pretty sure that’s what kind I have, where the oak trees have allowed them to grow. I did find this quote: “While many bird species including many parrots regularly feed on nuts and vegetation that have levels of tannin much higher than oaks, it is unclear how their bodies deal with the substance and it is therefore probably advisable to avoid high doses. ” Sort of saying, well, wild birds eat this and are fine, but it’s probably bad anyway.

Thanks @ccrow I wasn’t aware of any of that. I usually stick with gum which is what they would chew on in their natural habitat so I hope I am safe. She does love debarking the branches and chewing on the leaves as well.

My tiel also eats her poop-really ecky- it absolutely has nothing to do with a clean cage as her’s is cleaned everday and has agrate on the bottom. As soon as she poops and it does not go through the grating, she hops down and has a meal. I have tried everything but eats she does. She was found outside by friends and I think this behavior was part of her survival outside