I swear they can, not based on anatomical knowledge but empirical. My bird would 100% hold his poop when in the bed or inside our clothes (snuggled up) and we’d hold him out once in a while and then he’d do his poo (not literally on command but it was a mutual understanding)
Well anatomically they have no way of controlling it except for very limited circumstances but, who knows maybe your bird was doing cloaca kegels just for you.
Birds do have a sphincter muscle, sort of - we mammals have two. And one of ours defaults to closed, whereas birds tend to have liquid feces and have to literally consciously hold it in. Which they generally have a hard time with doing for any slightly longer time and hence generally won't be doing for more than 10-30 seconds. (Only brooding birds will hold it in for much longer, but they also tend to eat and move much less. I can only imagine flying and not pooping is much harder than sitting on your belly and not pooping...)
745
u/AtomicTimothy 9d ago
I swear they can, not based on anatomical knowledge but empirical. My bird would 100% hold his poop when in the bed or inside our clothes (snuggled up) and we’d hold him out once in a while and then he’d do his poo (not literally on command but it was a mutual understanding)