SHe's EAting MY Fingernails!!!

tootsietoots · Jan 24, 2019

My lovebird Tootsie has recently gotten into the habit of wanting to chew bits of my fingernails off and (maybe) eating them? I thought it might be because she lacked calcium and so I scraped a bunch of cuttlebone into her food (Nutri-Berries). But she still persists in chewing my fingernails even though I've cut them really short now...

Is there anything actually wrong with her or is it just a biting phase? I'd like to know how to help her from eating my fingernails. Thank you so much if you can help provide any tips or experience! Here's a photo of her committing the crime.

Laurasea · Jan 24, 2019

Mine do this, all of them. So I figured it's ok

they get hang nails too and see them swollow those! I told em we are are blood brothers and sisters now!
Tootsie is still just so beautiful to me, just love live her colors!

texsize · Jan 24, 2019

Bella use to trim my toenails but I don't think she ate them.
One of my Tiels (Baby I think) would trim and eat my fingernails. He has not done this in a long time.

I think it's common and more/less normal. I would not worry about it.

Owlet · Jan 24, 2019

She's grooming you, she likes you!

Nite · Jan 24, 2019

is she getting enough beak stimulation/exercise, she has probably made it a habit to do it with your finger nails. You can give her stuff to chew like wood, paper etc

tootsietoots · Jan 24, 2019

Laurasea said:
Mine do this, all of them. So I figured it's ok they get hang nails too and see them swollow those! I told em we are are blood brothers and sisters now!
Tootsie is still just so beautiful to me, just love live her colors!

That's so funny, thank you so much! It's calming to hear that other birds do this too!

tootsietoots · Jan 24, 2019

texsize said:
Bella use to trim my toenails but I don't think she ate them.
One of my Tiels (Baby I think) would trim and eat my fingernails. He has not done this in a long time.

I think it's common and more/less normal. I would not worry about it.

Thank you! I'm glad to hear it's normal!

tootsietoots · Jan 24, 2019

Owlet said:
She's grooming you, she likes you!

I'm so happy she does!

tootsietoots · Jan 24, 2019

Nite said:
is she getting enough beak stimulation/exercise, she has probably made it a habit to do it with your finger nails. You can give her stuff to chew like wood, paper etc

She does have a bunch of toys in her cage (mostly wood, loofah, plastic, foam, and paper)~ she also does love attacking the wooden toys and shredding the paper at the bottom of the cage, but maybe it could be that we aren't switching the toys out enough and she got bored of it?

Thank you for the reply! :01:

LordTriggs · Jan 25, 2019

yup sounds to me like she's giving your nails a good birdy manicure! gotta keep things up to her high standards!

itzjbean · Jan 25, 2019

tootsietoots said:
so I scraped a bunch of cuttlebone into her food (Nutri-Berries).

You mentioned her food is Nutri-berries, I'm wondering if you give her anything else to eat? Most people feed these Nutri-berries as treats, not as a parrot's only food. perhaps adding in some other foods (fruits, veggies, pellets) into her diet would be helpful and maybe she'll stop eating at your nails too.

Tami2 · Jan 25, 2019

tootsietoots said:
My lovebird Tootsie has recently gotten into the habit of wanting to chew bits of my fingernails off and (maybe) eating them? I thought it might be because she lacked calcium and so I scraped a bunch of cuttlebone into her food (Nutri-Berries). But she still persists in chewing my fingernails even though I've cut them really short now...

Is there anything actually wrong with her or is it just a biting phase? I'd like to know how to help her from eating my fingernails. Thank you so much if you can help provide any tips or experience! Here's a photo of her committing the crime.

I stopped getting my nails done for an entire year after I got Levi.
He no longer eats/breaks my nails, so I can get them done again.

I looked at it as it was hard, so he thought it was okay to bite?

EllenD · Jan 25, 2019

Ewwww, she's eating them? They just have no shame at all do they...No, nothing wrong with her, she's just being a bird...lol.

As far as the toy thing goes, if she already likes to chew paper, I highly suggest you at run to Petco and buy a package of Shredders for $4.99...It's a pack of braided, digestible paper that is incredibly strong and that you wrap all around their cage, weave it through their cage bars, and twist it around the bars, etc. It actually gives them "a job" to do, and my guys will work on it for hours at a time if I really do a good job of wrapping their cages up in it...And it's only $4.99 for 30 feet of it, so it's definitely worth at least trying, and if she doesn't like it then you've not lost much at all...And if she does like it, it will occupy her for hours every day...

Birds/parrots in the wild spend their entire day, every day, foraging for enough food to meet their daily nutritional needs, and the average wild parrot flies an average of 8-10 miles every single day foraging just for their food...In captivity, pet parrots have a bowl of nutrient-dense food 3 steps to the right in a bowl every day...So they get bored, and we as their owners have to give them a "job" to do...and for birds who are chewers and shredders, this "Shredders" stuff seems to work wonders...My Cockatiel isn't a chewer at all, so she doesn't bother with it...But let me tell you, my Senegal, my Quaker, and my Green Cheek go to town and could care less what I'm doing for the rest of the day after I wrap their cages up in a new package of it!!! They don't even fly over to me to get food that I'm eating...i'll wrap their cages up in it (and they try to attack it while I'm wrapping their cages in it), and they don't even come out of their cages, their doors are open and they either work on it from the outside of their cage, or they work on it from the inside and don't care that the door is open...So i'd give it a whirl with Tootsie...

*By the way, what kind of Love Bird is Tootsie? She's beautiful!!! I don't know a whole lot about Love Birds and their mutations/colors, I've never owned one myself and have only dealt with the ones that come into the Rescue I work at...But Tootsie is just gorgeous!!!

dhraiden · Jan 25, 2019

Think of all the $$ you're saving on mani-pedis!:smiley5: :yellow2:

tootsietoots · Jan 25, 2019

LordTriggs said:
yup sounds to me like she's giving your nails a good birdy manicure! gotta keep things up to her high standards!

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] Yep!

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tootsietoots · Jan 25, 2019

itzjbean said:
tootsietoots said:

so I scraped a bunch of cuttlebone into her food (Nutri-Berries).

Click to expand...

You mentioned her food is Nutri-berries, I'm wondering if you give her anything else to eat? Most people feed these Nutri-berries as treats, not as a parrot's only food. perhaps adding in some other foods (fruits, veggies, pellets) into her diet would be helpful and maybe she'll stop eating at your nails too.

Her main food is pretty much Nutriberries with millet as a treat sometimes, since she is so so picky and rejects veggies, fruit, pellets, and stuff like that even though we've tried slowly converting her to pellets and have her eat fruit for a while (I think we still have an almost full bag of ZuPreem). So we thought it would healthier for her to be on Nutriberries instead of regular seeds, since Nutri-berries supposedly have the nutrients of pellets (but they are pricier). We also put vitamin drops into her water daily, and of course she has cuttlebone and a mineral block. Other than that, she doesn't want to eat anything else besides regular seed so we give her Nutri-berries. Thank you for your suggestion!

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tootsietoots · Jan 25, 2019

Tami2 said:
tootsietoots said:

My lovebird Tootsie has recently gotten into the habit of wanting to chew bits of my fingernails off and (maybe) eating them? I thought it might be because she lacked calcium and so I scraped a bunch of cuttlebone into her food (Nutri-Berries). But she still persists in chewing my fingernails even though I've cut them really short now...

Is there anything actually wrong with her or is it just a biting phase? I'd like to know how to help her from eating my fingernails. Thank you so much if you can help provide any tips or experience! Here's a photo of her committing the crime.

Click to expand...

I stopped getting my nails done for an entire year after I got Levi.

He no longer eats/breaks my nails, so I can get them done again.

I looked at it as it was hard, so he thought it was okay to bite?

[emoji23] That's good to know that the biting thing doesn't last forever! Thank you! [emoji177]

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tootsietoots · Jan 25, 2019

EllenD said:
Ewwww, she's eating them? They just have no shame at all do they...No, nothing wrong with her, she's just being a bird...lol.

As far as the toy thing goes, if she already likes to chew paper, I highly suggest you at run to Petco and buy a package of Shredders for $4.99...It's a pack of braided, digestible paper that is incredibly strong and that you wrap all around their cage, weave it through their cage bars, and twist it around the bars, etc. It actually gives them "a job" to do, and my guys will work on it for hours at a time if I really do a good job of wrapping their cages up in it...And it's only $4.99 for 30 feet of it, so it's definitely worth at least trying, and if she doesn't like it then you've not lost much at all...And if she does like it, it will occupy her for hours every day...

Birds/parrots in the wild spend their entire day, every day, foraging for enough food to meet their daily nutritional needs, and the average wild parrot flies an average of 8-10 miles every single day foraging just for their food...In captivity, pet parrots have a bowl of nutrient-dense food 3 steps to the right in a bowl every day...So they get bored, and we as their owners have to give them a "job" to do...and for birds who are chewers and shredders, this "Shredders" stuff seems to work wonders...My Cockatiel isn't a chewer at all, so she doesn't bother with it...But let me tell you, my Senegal, my Quaker, and my Green Cheek go to town and could care less what I'm doing for the rest of the day after I wrap their cages up in a new package of it!!! They don't even fly over to me to get food that I'm eating...i'll wrap their cages up in it (and they try to attack it while I'm wrapping their cages in it), and they don't even come out of their cages, their doors are open and they either work on it from the outside of their cage, or they work on it from the inside and don't care that the door is open...So i'd give it a whirl with Tootsie...

*By the way, what kind of Love Bird is Tootsie? She's beautiful!!! I don't know a whole lot about Love Birds and their mutations/colors, I've never owned one myself and have only dealt with the ones that come into the Rescue I work at...But Tootsie is just gorgeous!!!

Thank you so much for the awesome suggestion!! I'll be sure to look into those shredders the next time I visit the bird store! [emoji1][emoji177]

Tootsie's a peach-faced lovebird, and she's possibly a Dutch Blue mutation with some dark factor.. Not 100% sure, but she does look like it! Thank you so much! [emoji173]

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tootsietoots · Jan 25, 2019

dhraiden said:
Think of all the $$ you're saving on mani-pedis!:smiley5:

[emoji23][emoji23][emoji23] So true!!!

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noodles123 · Jan 25, 2019

Aren't our nails keratin? My bird loves to eat her own keratin feather sheaths some days...I would venture to say it is a similar flavor lol!

SHe's EAting MY Fingernails!!!

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