Caring for Parakeets

Video Transcript

"In this clip we are going to talk about maintenance for these birds. So, basic maintenance obviously, is food and water. The other maintenance is, these guys get a little bit bored, so you may want to switch out their toys. They should have a decent amount of destructible toys in their cage that they can destroy and like sift through, so any sort of destructible toy needs to be replaced once it becomes destroyed. And these guys also, to maintain their feather quality, they either needed to be misted on a daily basis or by a daily basis, if you can, with a small mister. You can also offer these birds, a lot of them love to take baths, you can offer them a very swallow bowl of water. Put it on the bottom of the cage and these birds will like jump in and take a little bath and fluff the water up over their feathers and let it run down their back. The water helps remove any soot and stuff that might be in your household that is accumulating and any sort of dusts. Basically, keep their feathers clean. Also, compare to their environment, our homes with air conditioning and heat, tend to be extra dry, so lots of time they will have trouble molting their feathers properly and it can end up with some damaged feathers if they don't have a high enough humidity. Again, if you mist them a couple of times a day, this help compensate for the low humidity in your home and keeping a good feather health for these guys. Basic other stuff that these guys need, is surely recommended that once year you take them to a Vet. Where a Vet can hold them still and look underneath their feathers, and check underneath their wings. Open up their mouths and look into their eyes, to make sure that there isn't beginnings of any serious health problems, which, is difficult for the average owner to do. Sometimes these guys need to have their nails trimmed as their nails will get overgrown. If you take your bird out of the cage or considering taking it outside, you need to decide whether to clip these guys wings. It can be fun to have a bird that can fly all over your house and come and goes as it please, but it can also be very dangerous for the bird. So, you may have to clip your birds wings every 12 weeks to every 6 months depending on where and how often your bird is molting. The other basic thing is cage maintenance, so that there is not any loose strings. Check your cage so that there is not anything that may wrap around their toes or legs and cut of circulation. You need to clean out their cage and I recommend cleaning it out at least every other day. Put down a newspaper and clean it up. At least you can tell if your bird has been eating and all of its stools are looking normal. They are not too bad as far as just day to day maintenance, considered. Especially if you only have one bird that you spend at least a couple of hours a day with it. Have sort of a more intimate time with your bird, by either sitting next to the cage and talk to them, or having them out with you. If they have other birds they can interact with, you don't have to spend as much one-on-one time, you just have to make sure that the environment they live in, is safe. "