Why Do Pet Bird Keepers Allow Poop to Drop in Food Dishes?

Last Updated on July 14, 2023 by Catherine Tobsing

Marla S. Relates

Hi, your toys, treats, and perch setup is nice. Not overcrowded and laid out nicely. One comment though.

As a Lovebird Mom for over nine years now It baffles me to this day to see other bird parents place their bird’s open food and water dishes on the cage floor!

This is in the direct path of the bird’s droppings!

Would you place your human child’s food and water dishes at the bottom of the toilet?

No. Why then would you put your bird children’s food and water dishes in the place where their feces would be dropped into them????

For sanitation reasons I hang a double feeding trough with an inserted feeding dish on each side; one for water and one for Harrison’s Organic High Potency food.

The food is changed daily and their water dishes are cleaned and changed twice a day with filtered water.

This way their feces drop to the cage bottom and their filtered water and food don’t get contaminated!

Keeping our little dependent feathered kids healthy is every bird parent’s top priority, right? Thank you.

Hi Marla

Nature designed bird poop to help carry seed (and fish eggs) across the land to help propagate earth which is why birds are so messy. They don’t know the difference between the rain forest canopy and your Pergo floor.

Budgies are ground eaters so it’s more natural for them to eat on the ground. If you look at any of the cages I’ve set up (hundreds), not a toy, food dish, perch or ladder ever gets pooped on from above.

All our birds mainly eat from crocks or pans on the bottom of the birdcage.

We take into consideration every nuance of the species when cage set-up time arrives. The more time a bird spends in a cage, the more often the cage needs to be arranged in order to challenge the bird against boredom

Every square inch of a cage is the direct path of the cage floor.

Lovebirds are unique because they are willing to hang on the walls of the cage while engaging toys where as other birds may prefer to stand on a perch while doing so. Thus I will cagescape a lovebird’s cage much differently than a cockatiel’s or a Quaker’s cage.

Sometimes it may take a couple of weeks but to your point, birds will clean their feet with their beak and tongue so you don’t want them walking through poop at any level or accessory in the cage.

Soiled toys and accessories also take longer to clean.

Written by Mitch Rezman
Approved by Catherine Tobsing