OK-- I never thought this would happen at our house. I'd read where many of your fids were making pellet soup. I would sit and chuckle at the predicament, thinking how fortunate I was that Hemingway was a dry pellet eater. Well.. he has crossed over to the soup-side I am afraid. What on earth possesses them to start doing it? I check his water on his playtree a hundred times a day only to find little balls floating around. I've even caught him doing the inverse process-- taking some water up with his beak and then quickly stealing a pellet to eat with the water. Weirdo! Never a dull moment with these guys. Guess it's time to start checking out the water bottles!!

From what I understand, Birds who are really dunkers will figure out a way to dip the pellets against the tip of the water bottle as well. I've read where some birds will stuff the pellet up inside the tube...

I can only guess this because it would be like us eating dry cereal without milk...Some like it some don't...but then I'm just guessing.

2 out of my 6 birds make pellet soup...I don't really understand it either...but that's just the way they are...

Sebastion takes a few pellets in his beak and then pours water from the bottle into his beak LOL He doesn't actually drink the water..but I am guessing lets it run over the pellets in his mouth .. the water runs in one side and out the other side of his beak We don't use the ball type water bottles..but the lever type.He has to push the lever aside to get water out..that way he can't stuff pellets inside it. After a few goood mouthfulls of pellets he is out of water...and its a DBL macaws bottle..hold 20 ounces of water Drives me bonkers cause bhim and the cage paper is usually soaked more then I can bet his darn pellets are

Casey will fill her little beak up with as many as she can fit... about 3 hagen pellets, then toss them into the water and wait a minute them catch them while they float on top of the water.
She seems to prefer eating the zupreems dry though, I guess because they are bigger and she can hold it in her feet... and she doesn't like putting wet things in her feet!

Funny how they come up with all this!

Frankie is a souper, and Isabelle is not. I can't figure out why ... maybe dunking the pellets make them more easily digestable? I finally relented and added two water cups to Frankie's cage. The kind that attach to the side with a screw and a wing nut. He uses these two to dunk, and not his regular water dish, so we are lucky he keeps one clean to drink from!

I have all my birds on water bottles and I did that mainly for the 'poop soup' factor. Most of my birds will take a pellet and then take a drink out of their water bottle. It helps soften the pellet (which I like because it doesn't go flying into 100 directions when they bite into it!).

Gypsy...use a doggie pee pad under his cage in the newspaper, will ehlp soak it up!

some just have a prefence for dipping
in my house those same fids love oatmeal maybe for the same reason because its moist etc...
I dont use water bottles I just ended up getting multiple bird dishes so that when they dirty one I can just exchange it with a fresh dish and put the other one in the dishwasher.

Sméagol is a dunker and dunks everything including his treats .. I'm guessing to soften it up but then how soft do you need a bean to be?

I really don't have a problem with it .. it seems to be important to him! I just check and change his water regularly to make sure he always has fresh clean water ...

I tried a water bottle for his carrier and he stuffs the spout with pellets to the point that he has no water ..

Thats why the macaws have the lever type...can't stuff the spout because the lever is in the way

Really .. do they make that type small enough for a carrier for a quaker? I don't want to deprive him of his pellet dunking in his cage but would definitely be interested in a bottle that prevents pellet stuffing for his carrier ..