Bird Cages – Tips for Creating a Sanctuary for your Bird

When it comes to keeping a pet bird, it’s bird cage needs to be set up correctly with lots of things within it for the bird to perch on, chew on and play with. Bird cages are meant to be a sanctuary where your bird not only feels safe, but also enjoys itself and keeps busy. Having plenty of safe bird toys in your bird’s environment is an absolute must.

Stick with Natural Bird Safe Toys

It’s all too often that birds end up sick and even dying because there were the wrong, often dangerous items for them to chew on in the bird cage. It’s a bird’s natural instinct to chew and they will chew on pretty much anything they can get their beaks on. So stay away from cheap plastic toys, toxic metals and other items that a bird wouldn’t chew on in nature.

Bird cage accessories such as rope perches and toys – even though they are often promoted as bird safe toys – in reality can seriously hurt your avian friend and even take their life. Bird cages need plenty of things such as green leafy branches, lots of rough bark, seed pods and seeding natural grasses to keep your bird both healthy and entertained. Luckily these kinds of items are easy to source in Australia. So make sure to have the proper, natural and safe bird toys in their enclosure.

Cage Cleanliness is Key

Your avian companion will certainly spend a lot of its time in their bird cage and they are messy little creatures. Since the bird can’t clean its enclosure itself, it is your job to make sure that your avian companions’ living quarters are clean. It is imperative to clean bird cages every day for optimal avian health.

Keep in mind that the bars on the bottom of the cage are not meant for the birds feet and therefore the flooring needs to be covered with something bird friendly. The most commonly used and safe bird cage flooring is newspaper and remember never to use something abrasive as flooring in bird cages. Australia of course has many daily newspapers to choose from, so find one you like to read and when you are done, clean your bird’s cage and replace the flooring. Birds love to play around on the floor of the cage, so a bird with improper or unclean flooring will risk secondary infection.

Size Matters in Bird Cages

When it comes to bird cages, size definitely matters and you want your avian companion to have the largest possible enclosure that you have space for. After all, it is their home and you want them to have plenty of room for bird safe toys, perches and play areas. For a very happy bird, you don’t want to purchase a vertical bird cage as they would much prefer a long square enclosure. The reason for this is their horizontal flight – they aren’t rocket ships, they’re more like a prop plane.

Treats

Do you really want to fill your bird with joy? Of course you do and they love nothing more than a good serving of wild seeding grasses. Birds in the wild are always foraging and finding seeds and other treats, a captive bird still has those instincts and they need to have fun while being healthy.

So to recap this article, remember that the best parrot toys and bird toys in general come from nature. Lots of bark to chew on and green leafy branches should be available in their large, horizontal and rectangular enclosure. Also, newspapers make for the best substrate and should be changed every day when you clean the cage. For treats, keep it natural and provide them with their favourite snack of wild seeding grasses.

We hope this helps you to give your avian companion its best possible life. We have many useful and important tips for all types of exotic animals in our articles section if you would like to learn more.

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