How Do I Keep My Parrot From Dumping His Food Every Day?

Last Updated on June 6, 2025 by Mitch Rezman

Jerilyn called with a problem.

Her Sun Conure would dump his dry food every day.

It didn’t matter what she fed him, as soon as he received it, he would start to toss every bit until the dish was empty and the food was everywhere BUT the bowl. The cage floor, the outside of the cage floor. What a mess.

I asked the usual questions: how much are you feeding him, is he getting any sunflower seeds in his mix, are you giving him a tiny bit or a whole bowl?

The reasons for these questions:

If a parrot is fed sunflower seeds in its seed mix, the bird may hyper-focus on them and will dig until nothing is in the bowl “just in case” there is one remaining sunflower seed. In those situations, they may toss everything in their dish. We recommend that the owners only put a tablespoon of the mix into the birds dish at a time, OR, stop feeding sunflower seed mixes.

Higgins Versele-Laga Safflower Gold Parrot Food No Sunflower 3 lb

Jerilyn said it wasn’t the sunflower seed problem. So I told her most likely, the bird was seeing its own reflection in the bottom of the shiny dish and was trying to get to it.

So, my suggestion was to order ceramic dishes that fit the same bird cage rings. So she did.

Today Jerilyn called and said “It worked, and he is eating”. “His vet was no help when I asked about this problem”.

Thankfully she has a Prevue Select Cage as they have a universal dish ring that can hold two depths of stainless steel dishes AND also a heavy white ceramic dish. She was able to just order it.

Auto Draft

Ceramic Bird Cage Crock And Ring 6400 8 oz Solid White

We do offer them in 3 sizes and two colors here.

They can be installed in any cage easily.

Auto Draft

Not all cage manufacturers offer these options. Others may need to remove the stainless steel dish options entirely and then use ceramic dishes/crocks that come with their own bolt on rings.

Regards

Catherine