Choosing The Right Bird Cage For Your Pet Parrot
Once you buy him, your parrot will become an important family member for a long, long time so if you truly come to care for him, you should make sure he has the most adequate living conditions you could get.
Seeing how his bird cage will be his home for the most part of his life (unfortunately, leaving even the best trained parrots fly freely through the house poses a real danger to them, or is a potential risk for them to run away), you need to make sure it’s the right one for him.
The following article will help you out in choosing the perfect bird cage for your parrot as well as give you some advice on how to “decorate” it in order for your colorful friend to feel at his best.
The first choosing criteria should obviously be the bird cage’s size. The size of the cage should be directly proportional to the size of the parrot. Sticking a large macaw in a small cage will not only make him uncomfortable, but it will actually affect his health and mood in a negative sense, for obvious reasons.
This doesn’t mean that smaller birds should get small cages either. Actually, the bigger the cage, the happier the parrot! Of course, your home’s design might not permit getting the largest bird cages out there, but try finding a room that has a lot of space for a parrot cage and place it there rather than on “traditional”, smaller places.
And even if you do get the largest of bird cages out there, make sure you remember it’s still a CAGE. Giving your parrot some flying freedom (around the house, making sure there are no open windows or doors where can could escape through) will do heaps of good for his liveliness, mood and health.
The bird cage’s shape is also very important. You might have noticed that most traditional cages have a cylindrical shape, having a greater height than their length.
These are extremely unhealthy for your parrot, since they don’t allow him to exercise his flight (they can’t fly straight up or straight down, can they?).
Vertical cages have a single advantage, in the fact that they allow the parrot to climb up and down on the bars, which offers a small compensation to the fact that they cannot exercise otherwise.
The material from which the bars and cage door are made should also be taken into consideration when you make your choice. Some bird cages are made of poor plastics or toxic metals and since most parrots have the bad habit of chewing everything surrounding them, the negative effects these cages could cause are pretty obvious. In addition, quality material bird cages also look better for your overall home décor.
Although these are the main parameters you should concentrate on when choosing a bird cage, you might also want to pay attention to smaller details such as the ease with which the cage is maintained (this too might be dependent on the material used for the cage), the ability to attach perches and accessories directly to the cage, its bar spacing (for safety reasons, so that your parrot doesn’t get caught between the bars if they are too tight) and having a secure door.
Most importantly, you should always think from your parrot’s point of view when choosing his new home, asking yourself what would make him more comfortable and happy.
(c) Chris Bloor
Chris Bloor loves parrots. He provides more Choosing the Right Bird Cage for Your Pet Parrot tips at http://AcmeBirdCages.com
Tags: parrot care, parrot food, parrots
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Wednesday, February 6th, 2008 at 8:03 pm under
