Bird-proofing your home is critical for bird owners. If you let your bird out of the cage (and you should – pet birds need exercise and stimulation!), you need to ensure that it has a safe environment and that it is constantly supervised! In this video, bird expert Dr. Laurie Hess provides some tips to make your house safe for your feathered friends.
Watch Bird-Proofing Your Home on YouTube.
Video Transcript
Hi. I am Dr. Laurie Hess and today, I’m going to introduce you to my good friend here, Target. She’s our bird at the animal hospital and she’s here with me to talk to you a little about a very important topic which is bird proofing your home. We know birds get into everything. This one is such a mischief-maker. She will chew on anything that she can get her beak on too.
So it’s really important, particularly if you’re going to have your bird out of his cage at home, that you bird-proof the environment that the bird is going to be in. You want to make sure that you’re always supervising your bird when it’s out of the cage and you never leave the bird alone because birds do get into a lot of trouble. We see a lot of injuries when they’re left alone. I know it’s fun to have them out of their cage, but you really, really want to supervise them when they’re out and you want to evaluate the room before you let the bird out into the room. You want to make sure you put away wires. You want to make sure there are no open flames like a fireplace or a stove. You want to make sure there are no hot pots of water. Yeah, you feel very strongly about that, right? If there are no open coffee cups, anything the bird could fly into (open windows, open doors, ceiling fans)? These are all things that could be a hazard to your bird even in your own home.
You want to make sure that you provide safe things in their cage – appropriate toys and appropriate toys could be things as common as, something as complicated as, this is a favorite toy that we actually purchased for her and she loves this. She’ll play with that all day long. You want to make sure that they have the appropriate food in their cage. You can also give them fancy toys like this little paper flower. She’ll play with that.
You want to make sure that in their cage, they have appropriate foods, things to chew on, parrot food. You know, we believe in a pelleted diet here. It’s their base diet. If you give them safe treats like fruits and vegetables that they love, so appropriate bird food for them is very important so they don’t get into chewing on things they shouldn’t.
And you just want to make sure that the environment is safe with no hidden dangers. Birds are very, very curious. They do get into everything so bird proofing your home is very, very important so that your bird could come out and enjoy playing with a toy without getting into danger.
