To all you conure owners

[Cheryl]

I have several birds and none are as messy as my sun. He holds onto the cage bars and poops down them. No matter what I do they drip poop. Is this normal? It is like he does not want to soil his cage or something.

[birdscomefirst]

Yep it's normal. Its called projectile poops as a fun way to describe it.

Both my suns do it. and Yes, it is an urge not to soil its "nest" territory.

You may notice that if your bird is on you that often it will try to position itself so that it can cause its poop to fall off you. Consequently you usually end up with a long streak of it going down your back:-)

Some conures will even hold it until you pick them up off your shoulder, for example, and poop onto the floor.

All normal behaviors:-)

Thanks,
Bill

[Sashagirl]

Well I have 2 Conures a Jenday and a Cherry Head Conure.
Robin the Cherry Head is the worse she goes out of her way to make sure she poops down the wall and anywhere else she can reach.Projectile she needs to start cleaning up after herself.:idea:

[Cheryl]

That is good to know. I was beginning to think that he just like watching me clean. He is a sweet bird and I have had him for a few years now. He is one of my rehomes and I was just wondering if it had anything to do with his past or if he was just old and crochety.

[Chrissy and Flock]

Wow I am lucky, Sunny goes in the same spot everytime while in his cage its almost like that spot is his bathroom. If he is on my shoulder and needs to go he will tell me, he says "up good bird" that tells me he needs to go. I either hold him over the trash can or let him go to his bathroom in the cage. :D

[Gen120]

hhaha! My fids do the same thing..esp...Mango in the morning..I have to clean his cage every day!

[FoxersArtist]

I have to say, our foster Quaker, Tucker (now rehomed to TikiTalks), would not let a single poop hit the floor of his cage. He shot every last one on the bars or on the wall. It was so bad that we had to repaint the wall where his cage was after he was adopted out after scrubbing so often. My cockatiels also do this and am convinced that peggy sue (B&G) also does this as her poop ends up miles away from her area. One of our red lories (who have a reputation for this projectile pooping) is sure to spray her liquid poop everywhere. The other lory is very neat and tidy and tries to go potty in the same place, on his papers all the time. Our indian ringneck, chrissy, is also very neat and tidy and likes to poop in the exact same places, day after day. She has a pile in the front of her cage and one in the back and it never changes! The cockatoos could care less where their poop ends up but prefer not to do it on us! The amazons would hold it until the end of the world if they felt they had to. Both of them will attempt to hold it in their cages until we put them out on a play gym and then "bombs away." Neither have ever gone potty on us...except that one time PJ went potty on andy's head while he was cleaning his gym.
-Anna

[Chrissy and Flock]

Sunny has only pooped on both me and my hubby one time and that was the day we got him. Right away I started to potty train him. Like you said the toos don't care where they go, AngelBaby did poop on me the day that I met her. I think she was laying claim to me. :haha:

[CrystalinNC]

My green cheek lets me know when he has to go too. He will hold his poops as long as possible so as not to go in his cage...
and when he's on my shoulder, he will say poop over and over...if I don't listen, he'll poop down my back...
but when he trained me correctly, I could hold him out and away from me and he would poop on the floor.
Soooo...suffice it to say, I listen for the word "Poop" when he's on me! =)