Other potential problems and dangers your indoor pet bird may encounter and how to deal with them

Other potential problems and dangers your indoor pet bird may encounter and how to deal with them

Birds kept in a cage or flight indoors will rarely cause you any unexpected problems, the greatest risk is from others of your household; pets, children, appliances etc.

You must make sure that your bird is not bothered by the cat, dog, ferret or any other pet you happen to have. Cats probably cause the greatest danger for obvious reasons; I once heard a story about someone who had a pet budgie in a cage suspended from the ceiling, and their cat managed to get up onto some nearby furniture and jump onto the cage bringing it crashing to the floor. The cage burst open and the shocked budgie escaped to be promptly caught and eaten by the cat. So be warned!

Do not under any circumstances take anything for granted, your other pets may be fine with the bird whilst you are around but it could be a different matter when you're not there. The same applies to the dog; a close relative of mine once had a cockatiel but their dog caught it in mid flight and promptly enjoyed the poor bird as a tasty snack.

Children also should be taught not to frighten or annoy your bird, and to have respect for it. Boisterous and noisy kids are certainly not your birds favourite human, but kind, quiet, gentle kids can have lots of fun with your bird, and your bird can have lots of fun with them. A careless child can break bones in your little birds body with a single touch, "But Daddy I was only petting Mr. Beaky!"

Do you see my point?

The fumes produced whilst using non-stick cookware are very toxic to any pet bird, so keep your birds well away from the kitchen; A report in Cage & Aviary Bird' newspaper (excellent reading material, highly recommended) a year or so ago reported about how very many birds died whilst in the supposedly safe haven of a bird show. Apparently staff at the venue had been using some non-stick cookware, and some of the birds were located too close to this source of toxic fumes (or the ventilation wasn't adequate enough), and this was found to be the cause of the fatalities.

Certainly do not let your bird fly about and explore in the kitchen; birds are very inquisitive and if not paying attention you could end up with roast, fried or boiled budgie, frozen cockatiel, a finch in the whites only wash cycle, blended parakeet, bird droppings in your freshly prepared meal; enough of that, I'm sure you get the message!

Of course if you let your bird out of its cage to explore in the house you must be sure to close windows and doors, also close curtains or blinds - your bird may think it a route to outside and go crashing into the window glass, sometimes with disastrous results. Remove any fragile or valuable ornaments as birds love to test gravity with these. Switch off the ceiling fan, I'm sure shredded bird would be rather upsetting and very messy. Make sure you have no exposed light bulbs, not only can they easily be smashed but a bulb that has been switched on a while can become very hot indeed and could easily burn your bird, so be sure to have them shaded. Of course be sure NOT to use the vacuum cleaner whilst your bird is loose, small birds such as finches could easily be sucked into the pipe and a vacuum can also cause serious damage to any bird, regardless of its size.

Remember to save the DIY and decorating to when your bird is safely tucked away in its cage or flight, all paints will cause severe damage if it happens to get onto your bird, even wallpaper paste can cause problems, and that lump behind the wallpaper??? Plus the damage you could cause with a jig-saw, circular saw, power drill, steamer, doesn't bear thinking about, the list is endless.

I wouldn't be that careless!' you might think, but you'd be surprised how many people are oblivious to such things.

So much for there not being much danger to your bird indoors, but birds in an outdoor aviary are exposed to even more dangers but I'll cover those briefly in my next article.

For more information on bird keeping or to reserve your copy of my new ebook, out soon then please email me.

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