my TAG won't poop in her cage

[Molly]

Pearl, a nine year old TAG, has lived with my fiance and me for almost five months now. I love her dearly and she has really brightened up our lives! I have a couple of questions about some of her behavior. When she eats her pellets the first time around she pretty much just breaks them into smaller pieces. Then later she pulls out the tray at the bottom of her cage and picks them up and grinds them into smaller pieces. I think this whole time she is eating some too. But since she likes to eat the food at the bottom of her cage, she will rarely poop in her cage. She seems to wait until we let her out and then poops a huge amount. When she is out of the cage she doesn't hold in her poop. So I guess what I want to know is if it is hurting her in any way to hold her poop in until we can let her out. Is this normal? She is not usually in her cage for more than a couple hours at a time other than night time. Thanks for your help.
-Molly

[Guest]

I think her behavior is pretty normal. In the wild, I don't think they poop a lot near the roost, as it could give away to predatrs where they are.

As long as you not trying to stop her from pooping and it is only a few hours at a time, I would not worry about it.

[Lucysmom]

Our CAG Lucy doesn't like to poop in her cage, but will if there's no other alternative- although I've seen her poop there if she's in the middle of playing or eating. Our problem is that even though Lucy is getting a pretty extensive vocabulary, she hasn't learned to say "poop". She seems to understand the word, b/c when we put her on her portable perch & tell her to "go poop", she usually does. We try to take her to poop every so often, especially if we're playing with her, or she's just eaten. But sometimes if she has to poop & we're not in the room, she screams. It sounds the same as the scream for attention she sometimes does when she wants to play, or is feeling lonely. So it's been very hard to break her of screaming, b/c sometimes we have to respond or we'll have poop on the floor. She's 2 yrs. old & we've always used the word "poop"- should we just keep saying it & hope she catches on, or do you think we should try a different word? By the way, I read your article in Nature's Corner about screaming- had some good pointers in it. We've tried to take the portable perch into other rooms so she's not lonely, but she really seems to prefer to not be too far from her cage- will sometimes flap/walk back to the cage if she doesn't want to be where we take her.

[Guest]

That is a problem for outside the cage. The good thing is that she WILL poop when she has to inside the cage. I think the best thing is to NOT make the "poop command" constant....all of the time...out of the cage. Then she will not scream. But you need to make sure she's in a place that's acceptable while you're outside the room.

My Sweet Pea will pretend to need to poop when I am holding her and she wants to go to the perch. She knows I'll move her IMMEDIATELY! LOL!

GREY'Y Blessings,
Maggie-

[Lucysmom]

The problem is that Lucy is inconsistent- sometimes she'll scream for us to take her to her stand to poop when she's on top of her cage (her favorite place to hang out), & other times will take an unannounced dump off the side of her cage onto the kitchen floor. Sometimes if I approach her cage & she has to go, she'll just lift her foot to step up, without my asking. She's very funny b/c sometimes she'll scream & then say "What do you want?" which is what I say to her to try to get her to talk to me instead of screaming.

[Guest]

That's cute! At least it is the kitchen floor with probably wood, tile or vinyl. You may want to put some newspaper on that spot to catch any mess ups. It is better for her to be inconsistent than to be continually waiting for you so that she can poop.
Mag-