Tuesday, June 23, 2009

The Un-Fun for Budgie Owners-Is there an Art to It?

Anyone who had never owned a pet and reading this blog (can't imagine those two categories cross-sectioning, but perhaps, an animal lover who is in jail or something)...anyway, as i was was saying...errr....(starting over). Anyone who HAS owned a pet, knows that there is the un-fun part, which is, usually, dealing with 1) things that come out of their butts 2) things that have to do with their food after being eaten (clean up, or a mess) and 3) shedding (be it fur or in this case, feathers). Budgies, by far, are much, much less un-fun in this way than any dog or cat. while it would be ideal to clean the cage every day (just like for a cat owner, cleaning the litter box daily would be good..yeah right!), I suspect that once a week is pretty standard, and also, pretty acceptable. This doesn't apply to seed dishes-if they have only hulls in them, and no new seeds, or it is hard for the budgie to reach the seeds under spent hulls, the budgie could starve. So, seed dishes should be emptied and have new seed replaced daily.

I like the current set up for the bottom of the cage, having tried lots of "litter". The corn cob litter is safe for budgies, and looks ok (not that I spend a lot of time looking at it...). And because budgies have their favorite perches, and, favorite spots on the favorite perches, they tend to, er, accumulate "waste" in particular spots. I put timothy hay under those spots, so I can easily and quickly clean those areas, and not have to do a total cage change as often. Additionally, timothy hay smells good. Also, it can be pushed up against the edge of the cage, which can be hard to clean, and keep that from getting soiled.

So, if you've read this far, you're either 1) totally bored 2) as obsessed with budgies as I am, to the point where you are interested, even in their poop 3) one of those animal lovers in prison mentioned at the beginning or 4) all of these.

3 comments:

Ex said...

The problem I could see here is that it might be harder to spot abnormalities in the poop than it would be with using newspaper.

Anonymous said...

I'm among those who cleaned the cat box every morning before breakfast, for the years our kitty lived inside. I miss the task now that she is gone.

Budgie Blogger said...

That is a very good point, re: the importance of making sure the poop looks normal as an assessment of health. I think that the poop is easily visualized when you remove the timothy grass. Plenty still ends up in the corn cob litter too and the color contrast is pretty good. At least in the US (I am not sure if Ex is here) the newspaper now has smeary ink which I worry might not be good for budgies, but maybe I am overly paranoid. I do like paper towels, though

re: anonymous comment: I found your comment re: seeing cleaning on behalf of a pet as an act of love, very tender. My heart goes out to you for your loss.

thanks to both readers for comments!

The Happy Couple

The Happy Couple
Sutcliffe and Maryann in early 2007