Cleaning/Rearranging Cages of Anxious Birds

[Spiceopods]

Does anyone have advice for safely cleaning and rearranging cages when their inhabitants are still afraid of humans (and of change in general)? Today we tried to swap out Dusky's favorite rope perch for a wood one because he was shredding the rope one to the point where it was becoming a hazard. Except he was so stressed out that he wouldn't let us put the new wooden perch in his sleeping corner (we had to put it elsewhere for now -- we'll move it to his sleeping corner later when he's had a chance to calm down and adjust to the perch). And now he's so anxious that we had to re-cover the human-facing side of his cage to stop him from hyperventilating on the cage floor.

We're okay with the risk of finger chomps, but we don't want a poorly-timed chomp to result in us dropping a perch and on his little birdy head! Nor do we want the stress to cause breathing or heart problems for him. Nor do we want him to fly out in a panic and hurt himself crashing into things -- the window is currently covered and this room has no mirrors, but he has no real flying experience and mid-panic is no time to learn.

I feel like this would be easier if we could just clean or rearrange his cage while he's not in it, but there are two hurdles to that in Dusky's case:

1. He is (and has allegedly always been) reluctant to leave his cage, and we don't want to force him out by toweling him or chasing him out.
2. He isn't hand tame, so if he needs to go back in before he returns of his own accord (such as if bedtime rolls around)... it could potentially take us hours and a lot of stress all around to get him back in.

So ideas for how to facilitate out-of-cage time for skittish birdies would also be very helpful!

~Deyan

 

[Shezbug]

Leave him in there if he does not want to leave and just do everything very slowly and stay to the opposite side of the cage to where he is.

 

[Spiceopods]

Leave him in there if he does not want to leave and just do everything very slowly and stay to the opposite side of the cage to where he is.

All very good thoughts! Unfortunately, that is what we've already been doing and it still resulted in quite a bit of mayhem today. I think part of the problem is just that his cage is far too small and far too vertical, so with long things like perches "the opposite side of the cage" still translates to "all up in his business". He's an unplanned-for emergency foster who's still in the cage he came with -- the rescue that he's on a waitlist for plans to provide him with a more appropriately sized and shaped cage, but in the meantime we're kind of doing the best with what we've got due to budget and space limitations.

~Deyan

 

[Xoetix]

Is it possible to lure him away from where you’re working with a treat of some kind?

 

[Spiceopods]

Is it possible to lure him away from where you’re working with a treat of some kind?

We have yet to identify a food that he's enthused enough about to qualify as a Treat, but as soon as we do we intend to test this theory! We did just get some Nutriberries for him to try, so... hopefully those will be more of a hit than the pistachios that he refuses to touch, haha.

~Deyan

 

[Xoetix]

Maybe grapes? I’ve had good luck with cucumbers too.

 

[Spiceopods]

Maybe grapes? I’ve had good luck with cucumbers too.

Worth a try! He's thus far not been much of a fruit guy, but the humans in the house love both grapes and cucumber so... it's a low stakes experiment because even if Dusky doesn't like them, they certainly won't go to waste.