Lucky keeps getting constipated

Lucky is a female lovebird that I found in my backyard nearly two years ago.

Lucky is very hormonal, and obsessive about nesting, she is always looking for a dark enclosed place to make a nest. She is always shredding papers and putting them in her tail feathers.

I am always afraid that she is trying to form an egg. She tried this about 1.5 years ago, and it almost killed her. The egg burst inside her.

Maybe she is trying to form an egg, and that is making her constipated?

Lucky's diet:

Rowdy Bush, and Fuji apples are her staples. Sometimes we also give her brown rice, and corn. Other times we give her sprouted wheat berries. We give her a few sunflower seeds a day, as a treat. We give her tiny bits of egg, once or twice a week. She gets little bits of banana, maybe a few times a week. Lucky will not eat most veggies - we have tried.

What we have done:

Lucky's vet got lucky to poop by steaming her. We have tried the same thing. I am afraid we may not do it as well. We put Lucky in a small cage, we put a small pot of boiling water next to the cage, and we cover the cage and the pot with an old bed sheet, and an old table cloth. This used to work fairly well, these days not so much.

We also keep Lucky in the dark for 12 hours a night. At 6pm, we move Lucky from her big cage, to her small cage. We put the small cage in my walk-in closet until 6am. This is supposed to make her less hormonal. Not sure how well this works. Lucky is still very hormonal.


Any advice appreciated.

You might not want to give her papers to shred with anymore. Even though lovebirds love it, it would help her to be less "broody" if you took the papers away. You could also buy some cuttlebone, available at most pet stores. The calcium in the cuttlebone will replenish her calcium supply (which is dwindling because of the egg).

Make sure to keep her warm. If you know she's egg-bound, you could gently rub petroleum jelly on her vent.

We don't exactly "give" her paper to shred. When she is out of her cage, she finds paper, or something else, to shred. When she is in her small cage, she can, sometimes reach the paper under cage floor.

It is hard to stop her from shredding paper.

I didn't mean to accuse you like that, I'm sorry. I know my bird does the same thing. It always finds something.

How is your bird doing now?

You might try 14-16 hrs of sleep for 2 weeks, or try reducing her sleep hours to 8 hrs for 2 weeks.

Try giving her plain greek yogurt with live cultures.

Try foods like celery, raspberries, strawberries, nuts, lentils, pumpkin, quinoa, wild rice, barley, broccoli, peas, corn, carrots....


Try cooking up some healthy grains (quinoa, wild rice, amaranth, teff, spelt, etc), then mixing in some finely chopped vegetables and toss in some sprouted seeds.


Or start with feeding sprouted seeds and once she's accustomed to that, slowly start adding in finely chopped vegetables.




I'm sure that if you are persistent in feeding a wider range of foods, that she'll eventually switch over. You just have to be creative in how you present the food. I've also found that birds are usually more willing to try new foods if it looks interesting! As such, large chunks of veggies in their food dish may not be as appealing as finely diced foods combined together.

Lucky is doing better today - so far.

Lovie, I'm not offended, just sayin'

MonicaMc, I just stopped giving her sprouted wheat berries. My wife thinks those be contributing to her constipation. For now, Lucky is just getting rowdy bush, and apple.

Lucky loves seeds and nuts, but I hardy give her any. Too fatty, as I understand it.

Lucky does not want to eat veggies, we have tried all sorts of things. Lucky is very fussy about fruits. As much as Lucky loves apple, she will not even eat pear - she is *that* fussy.

A new thing Lucky is doing now: eating the shells of the few sunflower seeds we give her. I wonder if that could be causing some problems?

Also, every now and then, Lucky acts like she's chocking. She may just be getting food from her craw, but it scares me to death.

Is she choking or regurgitating?


She should probably still be getting seeds in her diet. If not dry seeds, then sprouted seeds. Small birds do not do well with seeds completely removed from their diet. If Lucky was a conure, pionus, ringneck, cockatoo or any other med to large species, then I'd say sure, it's ok to remove seeds from the diet! But Lucky is a lovebird, and small species are more likely to have health problems associated with having a high pelleted diet. They don't do well on seed only diets. They don't do well on pellet only diets. They need a varied diet!



I used to have seed eaters. In fact, the majority of my birds came to me eating only seeds. These are old photos (I no longer keep budgies) but I have converted all my birds over to eating a healthier diet. (the ones that came to me eating seeds)













It's not impossible to get Lucky unto a healthier diet. You've either not been creative enough, or you've simply given up.

I am back to giving lucky sprouted wheat berries, and corn.

I think the constipation may be related to her getting so hormonal.

Since we started keeping Lucky in the dark 12 hours, we have seen no improvement. Lucky hates being separated from everybody.

Why would keeping her in the dark only 8 hours work? My understand is: keeping her in the dark longer, is supposed to make her think it's winter, and therefore not time for breeding. This does not seem to work, but what is the theory about keeping her in the dark for less time?

I have a cockatiel that became a chronic egg layer. She was covered for most of the day, if not the entire day in her previous home.

When I took her in, I removed her eggs (but kept them just in case), and provided for her like I do my other birds. She wasn't covered, was provided the same foods, slept the same amount as they did.

I never had to give her back her eggs, and she's never tried to lay any more eggs and have a clutch of them.




As I said in my previous post.....

MonicaMc said:

You might try 14-16 hrs of sleep for 2 weeks, or try reducing her sleep hours to 8 hrs for 2 weeks.

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Where lovebirds come from, they get around 11-13 hours of daylight.... or 13-11 hrs of darkness. If you wanted, you could average that out to 12 hrs of day/night. That could potentially be setting your lovebird up for breeding! If you want to upset her schedule any, you may need to do more hours of daylight, or less hours of daylight. Whatever that would work to get her out of breeding mode, if her hormones are raging.


Actually, here's what one breeder said about chronic egg laying.....

<<<For chronic egg-laying birds, begin supplementation while providing continuous light for a total of 72 hours>>>
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I found the instruction on the Releaves interesting in regards to the continuous lighting. Over the years i have found that leaving the lights on 24/7 has worked the best for deterring egg laying.

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I don't have any chronic egg layers, so I've never had to do anything as drastic as leaving the lights on for a few days to kick them out of the habit of laying. I also wouldn't recommend such a severe change if a lesser change may work just as well.

Took Lucky to the vet. The problem was the same as she had before. She formed the egg fluid, but no egg. The fluid filled her abdomen, and made her constipated. Then the situation perpetuated itself.

Once again, the vet drew out the fluid with a syringe. Then the vet gave her something to shut down her ovaries for a few days. Once again, I had to give Lucky antibiotics, and pain medication for a week.

So far, Lucky has been okay.

She needs more calcium.
You can also see about getting her a certain shot that helps stop birds from having hormonal periods.

Someone I know does that with her cronic layer parrotlet.

I think those shots only last for a few days.

Not sure how to get Lucky more calcium.

She always has a cuddle bone - she takes small bites, now and then.

She will not eat most vegetables. But she *loves* corn - can't get enough of it. I have read that too much corn might hinder her ability to absorb calcium, but I don't know if that's true.

When I put calcium drops in her water, she avoids drinking water.

She eats wheat-berries.

She eats Rowdy Bush, which is supposed to be nutritionally complete.