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The Caique Manual
9. Cleaning the cage Good hygiene is necessary for the health of your bird. Living in northeastern United States, I keep all my birds indoors. I have found that I only need to clean my pets’ cages once or twice a week. This is because my pets spend much of their time with me or on their stand. My breeders, which are kept two birds per cage, have to be cleaned a minimum of three or four times a week. A major factor affecting how often the cage needs to be cleaned is its floor area. In general, the larger the area of the cage floor the less often you need to clean. Try not to be too compulsive about cleaning up after every defecation. Your biggest concern should be that they are not fouled by their own feces. I use newsprint to line the cage floor. If you layer the newspapers in four or five layers, you simply roll up the top layer and pitch it out when it becomes fouled. The Centers for Disease Control also suggests you line your bird cages with newspaper. The reason for this is that other beddings will are prone to dust which can spread disease (MMWR, 2000). I once tried some of these. The ground up corncobs is particularly unsatisfactory. During warm weather in Florida, molds grew on it when it became wet with bird droppings or other debris. I never tried the "kitty litter" stuff or the ground walnut hulls that some pet stores sell for birds. These come with a sifter so that you use to periodically sift out the large aggregates that form when the material gets wet. There are reports (Cannon, 1994) that birds sometimes ingest the corncob and walnut shell. This can have disastrous consequences. If you really want to use one of these products try the absorbable crown bedding paper pellets and use a floor grid to prevent the bird from reaching it. These paper pellets are less likely to result in an impaction if they are ingested. As for myself, I find the newspapers work well enough for me, so I have stuck with them. Periodically, you have to scrub the cage. For this you have two choices. You can either buy a power washer or a good stiff brush. A brush is the only hand tool that works on cage bars decorated with dried fruit. A power washer is quicker but unless you have a special enclosure, you have to use it out doors. Whatever way you do it, try to pick a bright sunny day and, after being sure the birds are secure in a spare cage, take the cage outside and thoroughly scrub the cage with a solution of dilute detergent and sanitizer. I soak the perches and other small accessories in the sanitizer for at least 20 minutes, and then scrub down the cage itself. I then rinse the cage and accessories two or three times with water and allow them to dry in direct sunlight. If you do this when the sun is high in the sky, i.e., when your doctor tells you to stay out of the sun, the ultraviolet will provide another way for sterilizing your cage. When sunning the cage, rotate it so that all sides are exposed to the direct rays for a short while. I use chlorine bleach more frequently than any other sanitizer because it is the cheapest; however, I do not use it every time. A particular problem with chlorine beach is that soaking metal parts in it too often or too long results in corrosion. Fortunately, there are other good sanitizers. A list of these is provided in Appendix E. If you have a cage constructed entirely of metal, use Lysol. Lysol is more germicidal than the others, but never use Lysol on the plastic parts. You cannot rinse phenol away from the plastic, and the strong smell of phenol will persist in the plastic for months. Except possibly for Nolvasan, always wear rubber gloves when sanitizing your cage. Most of these agents irritate your hands. It is a good idea to rotate the use of sanitizers. This helps prevent microbes, especially molds, from becoming established. If you use the same sanitizer repeatedly the same mold may come back again and again because it developed a resistance to that sanitizer.
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