A common question that many parakeet owners have (frequently said with great anguish and frustration) is, “why does my budgie keep pooping in his water?” First, I would offer an assurance that the budgie is probably not purposefully soiling his water and food sources. Second, I would suggest that his current cage design and food/water sources probably unwittingly encourages this to occur. Here are some tips to consider when troubleshooting the issue of poop in water or food.
- Level design – Anyone who has played Super Mario Maker
knows how important level design is to making a good play-through experience. The same theory holds for designing the interior landscape of your budgie’s cage. You can plan ways to make transitioning from perch to perch easy, as well as how he will access toys, food and water. This can be helpful when planning for a comfortable sleeping space for your parakeet. Where it is truly critical is in making sure that the areas above food and water bowls are free of toys and perches, greatly reducing the likelihood that poop will fall into the food and water from above. It stinks losing usable cage space that way, but anyone who has put a food or water bowl below what turns out to be a favorite napping spot knows the fallout is not worth it!
- Fully enclosed water bottles – Our parakeets have Stainless Steel Hanging Bowls
, which are largely ignored in favor of Lixit Bird Waterers
, which offer a straw to drink from and no opening at all for water to be contaminated. They do have to be very carefully scrubbed to discourage bacteria growth, so be mindful of that! Other than the additional cleaning requirements these are perfect, both Toby and Kelly far prefer drinking from this style bottle to a bowl. There are also Silo Waterers
which achieve essentially the same result with a small pool of water that would be much harder to dirty.
- Mostly enclosed food bowls or silos – Similar to the water silos there are also Silo Bird Feeders
and Cup Feeders
that would both greatly reduce the opportunity to poop in food. There are also covered feeders like the Seed Corral No Mess Pet Feeder
– although it looks to me like the parakeet could go into the bowl and sit in their food, which would probably defeat the purpose on that one!
- Purposefully placing blocking items above bowls. Getting back to the concept of level design, you can thoughtfully place blockers above food and water bowls to protect them from fall out. Some ideas would be the Polly’s Comfy Clam Bird Perch
, a Round Natural Wood Bird Perch
or a Lava Ledge
, which are also good for chewing and perching on to keep beaks and nails in check.
knows how important level design is to making a good play-through experience. The same theory holds for designing the interior landscape of your budgie’s cage. You can plan ways to make transitioning from perch to perch easy, as well as how he will access toys, food and water. This can be helpful when planning for a 
, which are largely ignored in favor of 
, which offer a straw to drink from and no opening at all for water to be contaminated. They do have to be very carefully scrubbed to discourage bacteria growth, so be mindful of that! Other than the additional cleaning requirements these are perfect, both Toby and Kelly far prefer drinking from this style bottle to a bowl. There are also 
which achieve essentially the same result with a small pool of water that would be much harder to dirty.
and 
that would both greatly reduce the opportunity to poop in food. There are also covered feeders like the 
– although it looks to me like the parakeet could go into the bowl and sit in their food, which would probably defeat the purpose on that one!
, a 
or a 
, which are also good for chewing and perching on to keep beaks and nails in check.With a keen eye for environment design and possibly changing up the food and water sources I am confident that you can greatly reduce the amount of poop soiling your budgies’ food and water dishes. Outside of the issue of poop, always make sure to wash your budgies food and water bowls regularly.