Why do my parakeets eat off the floor?

Question

When they see food fall, they fly outside to the floor and act as a vacuum to clean it up? It used to be cute but now its annoying especially when visitors come. They would make noise if you lock the cage too

Answer 1

Birds are naturally foragers and eating from a food bowl that allows easy access inside of a tiny cage is strange compared the their habitats in nature. It's instinct for them to seek food in various places, since so many parrots fly off to have to search for food in the wild when they're hungry.

You can try to stimulate their foraging curiousities by encouraging foraging within their cage as well. Check out http://community.livejournal.com/captiveforaging for tips and pictures on how people encourage foraging in their homes. These are also not expensive at all, and can be done with many household items or little whatnots and bric-a-brac that can be found in craft stores or dollar stores in bulk. It's a really great site.

Answer 2

Many birds are foragers in the wild and will naturally look for food on the ground. They tend to bring that habit with them when kept as pets.

Answer 3

That is traditional behaviour for budgies to eat off the floor.

Some baby budgies have starved with a full seed cup because they were looking for it on the floor.

Answer 4

normal behavior. They see good food on the ground and they go get it. They should be locked in their cage when you have visitors.

Answer 5

Same as a dog they see it drop on the floor then they go for it.

Answer 6

i had parakeets 2 and they did the same thing. i don`t worry about it its pretty normal. i guess.