Grooming – Keep a watchful eye for overgrown toenails and beaks. If you have no prior experience in this sort of grooming, either contact me or take the bird to your avian vet for grooming. Use of hard mineral blocks help to keep beaks groomed and a small cement perch helps keep the toe nails groomed. For your bird's comfort, use wooden perches that are contoured and the appropriate diameter for perching. If the diameter of the perch is too great, the bird will be forced to stand flat footed which is abnormal posture and can cause arthritis and other maladies later in life.
Cage Maintenance: Replace newspaper (do not use shiny ad type paper) every other day. All-Over cleaning should happen once per week depending on bird size and the amount of ambient, dust, cooking residuals, etc. that can build-up on cage bars to make your bird sick. Put all food and water vessels, perches, swings and toys in the top rack of the dishwasher with brown apple cider vinegar (ACV) in the soap cup. DO NOT ALLOW THE MACHINE TO HEAT DRY THE ITEMS. Use a mixture of 50-50 ACV to clean cage bars and bottoms. Rinse with clear water. (I remove the birds to a travel cage and use a "Steam Mouse" steam cleaner and cloth, which sterilizes the cage without use of any introduced cleaner.
Toys and Toy Safety: Insure that all colored toys are dyed with Natural Vegetable Dyes or they may be toxic. Use only naturally tanned leather not chemically tanned leather, like leather shoe strings, etc. If you must use "Boing" type perches, made of braided threads, check them daily to insure there is no pulling or fraying of the threads. Many birds have died from getting a toenail caught in these things and in trying to free themselves, either bled to death (takes about 3 minutes) or have died of fright (heart attack). BELLS: Bells are the most popular bird toy on the market and birds love them – BUT – NEVER use the round slotted ones, as beaks and toes can get caught and cause injury or death. If you like the toy but; it has one of these bells attached, simply remove it and discard it. Bells with Clappers: Always inspect the clapper size before purchasing. If the clapper is small enough to fit into your bird's mouth, then the bird can twist and remove it, and it is a choking hazard.
Metal Hazards: Insure that all toys, toy hangers, door clips, etc. are made from stainless or iron and not heavy metals as listed in the Toxic Materials web site referenced here.
MAJOR CAUSES OF PET BIRD DEATHS: TEFLON COATINGS-Cookware, Self Cleaning Ovens, and others listed on the "Silent Killer" Web Site. GRIT – As explained in this document. HEAVY METAL- Heavy metals such as lead are as dangerous to birds as they are for people only, death comes more swiftly because of size, metabolism, etc. UNSAFE TOYS: Boing Perches, long string or long strands of leather that a bird can become entangled in, and Unsafe Bells. |
