How to Find the Best Cage for a Cockatiel

Video Transcript

"How to buy a proper cage for a Cockatiel. Well there's lots of different types of bird cages out there, they go anywhere from being very, very inexpensive to very expensive. Price generally does dictate the quality of the cage. If you are buying a cage for like twenty bucks chances are it's not going to last you very long. What I have here is two, just examples of Cockatiel cages. This is the absolute smallest size cage that I would ever put a Cockatiel in, even then it would probably be a little wary about it and I'd be looking for a larger cage, after I'd already purchased this one. Bigger is generally better to an extent. We like to give the birds a decent amount of room to move around them and that way you can put toys in there for them and things like that. Remember this is their home and they need to feel comfortable in it. When you are looking for a bird cage there's important things to look at. You want to make sure your bar spacing is appropriate. The spacing on the bars will vary on various styles of cage for bigger birds the bar spacing will be farther apart. And if you have a small bird with, in a cage with far apart bar spacing that can cause problems such as the bird squeezing through or even worse the bird getting its head through but getting stuck and then falling and choking itself or causing some sort of damage. So make sure the bar spacing is appropriate for this size bird, it should be able to fit it's head through between the bars. Other things you want to be looking for is you'll be looking for water bowls and food bowls built in. Generally most cages have these so that really shouldn't be a problem. This is the water bowl that would go in on this guy right here. And you can see it works pretty simply if I can get my hand in it. And just sits like that. Ok in the bird cage and then you can just simply open the door, pull this out, fill it with water or food, there's two of these, one on either side of the door. And then put it back in. That way you can do that without actually entering the bird's territory as some birds can be kind of biting inside their own cage. Make sure it has a large door, that's easily accessible, I can't really open this guy right now cause of the packaging on here. But the door is fairly large and it allows you to get into it. Also make sure that the cage is easily cleaned. As you can see on this guy the whole top comes off if I want, allowing me access inside. There's also a door on the top, allowing me access. Ok. So that's all nice and it has a little bottom tray that can pull out that I can clean. That's pretty standard, make sure that they have that sort of thing, make sure it's very accessible, make sure the cage comes apart relatively easy for cleaning. These are all important things for sanitation as bird cages do have to be cleaned pretty regularly at least once a week. This is a larger cage that we have here. It's a little bit nicer, a little bit higher quality. The bar spacing you see is a little bit bigger then the other one. It's still appropriate for a Cockatiel though. I wouldn't go too much deeper then that. It's got doors here, doors here, it's little food containers are down here with little doors that are accessible. It's got shields so the bird can't defecate in its food or water bowl. The top has doors built in it as well. The top is removable, the whole cage itself is removable as you can see if I flip that up on there, I flip up the back latch, I can pull the whole cage off the bottom part as well. Very easy to clean, very accessible in a nice looking cage. When you are buying a bird cage you really should be aware of where it's going in your home. How it's going to look in your home. Really think of it more as buying a piece of furniture then as actually buying a cage for an animal. You want something that is going to be nice and attractive, spend the money on it, because if you spend the money on it now it will last you forever, you never have to buy it again or repair it or throw it away and buy a new one. It's, and it can make your house look nicer, a garbage cage will look like garbage in your house and you'll be unhappy with it and you'll be unhappy with the bird and eventually you'll just end up getting rid of the animal entirely. So spend the money on the cage it's well worth it."