Perches for Cockatiels

Video Transcript

"How to pick the proper perch for a Cockatiel. That can be kind of difficult, if you don't know what you're looking for. Birds have to have a perch that is the proper size, in order to be comfortable. We have lots of different types of perches to choose from. There's anything from just like your plain old wooden perches, which are pretty self explanatory, to like calcium perches, which are made out of a calcium carbonate kind of substance, that can help add calcium to the diet of the animal, as well as help keep the beak and the nails wore down. There's perches made out of cement, which are used to help keep the nails worn down on the bird, so that they don't get overgrown, and then there's also like swing perches, which you see a lot in like old movies, or cartoons, and there's also rope perches, that sometimes there's swing perches like this, or sometimes they're just simply a perch made out of rope, that goes across the cage. What are the different reasons for all these different perches? Well, the rope perches are nice and soft. They can help, plus be able for them to chew on, because they're soft and giving. They're comfortable, they allow for an animal to say, maybe have, like a foot or something, to sit on them more comfortably. The cement perches like I said, help keep the nails worn down, and the beak too, if the animal chews on that perch. The same with the calcium perches, they also add calcium to the diet, and the wood perches are just good old perches, for perching on. Now, the perch needs to be a certain size for each bird. It needs to be basically, the bird's claws need to comfortably fit over about half the perch, so you don't want his claws touching in the middle, on the other side of the perch. You don't want him just on the top of the perch. You need to be able to grip comfortably into the sides, so it may take a little finding, for you to find the right size perch, for the right bird. For a cockatiel, you're probably looking at something in this type of width, for the most part. That way, when he sits on there, his feet are going to be like right here, and right here. They're not going to be touching underneath. You don't want that. That's going to give him the most comfort. As far as the swing perches go, most birds do not like these. You see them in old movies, and you see them on cartoons, and a lot of people think that they are an important part of keeping a bird. They're really not. Birds don't like perches that are unstable. They want to feel, when they're standing on their perch, they're stable, they're not going to go anywhere, they're not going to fall. Most birds do not go for the swinging perches. Some of the smaller birds, like parakeets and finches, and lovebirds, can and sometimes like these, but definitely the larger birds, aren't going to want anything to do with them. It's just not going to be stable enough."