Healthy Feet Make Happy Birds So Give Him Options

You have spent the entire day on your feet without even a moment to just perch.

Your poor feet feel like they have walked you around the world and back. Now if you will take just a moment and imagine its bed time and you have to sleep standing up and on your feet. A miserable thought right.

Can you imagine life like that? It isn't to difficult to imagine the foot and leg problems that could incur? Your parrot faces that exact problem. It's up to us as owners to be certain we do everything possible to provide comfort through options to our pet birds.

The wild version of your bird is free to roam how and wherever he wants. Your bird is able to pick his perches as his wants would indicate. However this is not so for the bird living in the living room cage. His perches are all up to you. Your pet bird needs options just like the wild birds.

Consider These About Perches.

1. The Circumfrence Of The Perch:

Pay attention here. The perch is to large if the birds feet are to flat on the perch. The perch is to small if the birds feet wrap around it allowing the toes to touch. The trick is to supply a number of sizes and varying shapes and materials that allow the bird to find his own comfort level at any given time.

2. Commercial Wooden Dowels:

There is nothing wrong with the commercial dowels other than the consistent shape and uniform circumference. The use of which gives the bird few options. If you must use commercial dowel perches make sure there are several sizing options available for the bird.

There should be at least one very hard wood perch in the cage this gives the bird a hard stable platform on which to sleep. If you can find a suitable hard wood tree branch to hang from the top of the cage having several different size branches they make excellent perches and will help.

3. Concrete Perches Certainly Are Useful:

The concrete will help keep the birds nails trimmed. However they are not naturally a comfortable perch and should only be used when there are plenty of proper wooden perches available. Perch material is nearly as important as the size.

4. Perch Placement:

There should be plenty of space between the perches and they should use the entire heigth of the cage. Going upward from the level of bowls and dishes. Be sure to allow adequate space between the perches to avoid injuring the bird. Most birds prefer sleeping on the higher perches. With the high perches make sure the birds head has proper clearance with the cage top. If your bird has long tail like a macaw be sure the perch placement does not allow the tail contact with the cage or other perches.

It is up to us to provide the proper perches for our birds. It is important to the birds health and safety. Whether your bird is large like a cockatoo or macaw or tiny like a cockatiel or finch the sizes shapes and type of perches is important. Take the time to learn to pick them right.