How often are you cleaning your lovebird's cage?

[cosmolove]

Okay so I feel like I almost have been having to clean bubbles' cage every day. He poops SO much and then its like he poops down the cage bars and on top of the perches all the time as well and so its like usually where I do like 2 deep cage scrubs a year for my other guys its like him I swear I do it atleast once a week.


Anyone else have problems like this? Its like I swear he prefers to poop down the cage bars than off a perch or anything like a normal bird.

 

[Milo]

I was cleaning cages today and was thinking the same thing. The boys' cage takes me forever to clean while Josie's took about 10 minutes. I do wonder if smaller birds' poo is more difficult to clean up

 

[cosmolove]

yeah like my conures cages I just roll up paper and put new down. Then when I rearrange their perches and such usually there is one perch that gets pooped on which is my fault for putting it in poop range. But bubbles OMG like seriously he clings to the cage bars and poops down. I had to clean 4 out of the like 6 perches that were in his cage.

 

[gayeschaul]

Well, I never would have time to do bird cage cleaning daily.....let's face it....birds are messy....Thank God for poop off and I've relaxed about cage cleaning.

Gaye

 

[Rizq]

I clean MOST every day - clean as in wipe down grates without removing, wipe poop off any perches or toys that got bombed, and clean out and wipe down trays (I don't use litter or paper) with deeper cleaning once a week. But I try to have things placed so there is minimal mess on perches and toys. I do have to say, though, that my lovie is the hardest cage to clean. My cage with three tiels stays cleaner. Cherise likes to scoot his tent over his big perch and leave big globs of nasty lovie poo for me to scrape off. I tell him he is nasty on a nearly daily basis ... but it changes nothing With 11 cages to clean, I think I would go insane if all my birds were as messy as Cherise!

 

[cosmolove]

I'm glad that I'm not the only one who is having this problem of a nasty little lovie haha!! He's adorable and all but he's killing me with this whole pooping everywhere idea.

 

[Laurul Feather Cat]

Yes, my lovebirds are the messiest birds I have and need daily cleaning. One of the reason they get some much poop on the cage bars is that they are hard-wired climbers in the wild and climb through trees looking for food. I have noticed they are constantly climbing on the cage bars to get in and out of their cage instead of flying like my other birds and while they climb, they are constantly pooping.

But I love my lovies, so messy or not, they are here to stay.

P.S. Now Blu and Harley have seven eggs in their tunnel which they are sitting on. I hope they are all sterile!

 

[Naiera]

I clean all three cages here daily with very few exceptions. I have a shallow bowl and sponge (that needs replacing far too often) reserved just for the birds. I sometimes just use warm water, sometimes water with a bit of original dawn soap, and sometimes hot water with white vinegar. I fill up the bowl and scrub off all the basic surfaces in the room first, then the perches and bars, especially near the food bowl, scrub the grate, and wipe out the trays before refreshing with new paper. Once the scrubbing and paper changing is done and the birds are in their cages for the night, I vacuum ... every ... single ... day . It's ridiculous, but I feel like there's not much option. They are super, super, super messy! They fling food everywhere and poop on everything. If I miss even a day I feel like it's embarrassingly disgusting.

I've got the routine down pretty well though. Sometimes I do a really thorough job and some days I just do it as quickly as possible. I'd say it takes me between 20 min. and an hour. On weekends I do a more rigorous clean. I alternate weekends where one weekend I'll I clean the carpets with the steamer and the next I'll dust EVERYTHING. They are in a carpeted bedroom so that makes it more difficult I think.

Every three months or so I take everything out of the cages and clean SUPER well, replace toys, alternate perches, etc.

Whenever people see my birds and comment on how cute they are I tell them about all this Between that and the cooking, it seems to deter some people ... no clue why

The biggest problem really is that my birds go to bed just after sun set, so in the winter I come home from work, clean, and they go to bed. I'm always amazed at how people with far more birds than me do it and still live their lives. The three cages here are already too many!!

 

[KatherinesBirds]

I have never seen a messier bird than my lovebird. Poop everywhere! I clean daily after removing the food and water. I take a soft cloth and the poop just falls away from the bars. I scrape the natural wood perches and make sure all the toys are clean. She even gets messes on the edges of the food dishes! I had lories that weren't this messy! I love this little bird

 

[JAM]

Our main flock are lorikeets so I have to replace the newspaper every day in the bottom and wipe down the bars because of the health risks of not doing that, so our little lovebird get's his done at the same time. He's definitely nowhere near as messy as the pooping specialists!

Every weekend all of the cages get a full house down and the cage cleaner is sprayed all over. Surrounding area newspaper is changed and the cover for the cages is cleaned too. It's a ritual now.

 

[Ankou]

I can't compare her to other species but Peanut is a bit of a mess. Poop on the bars too, unless it manages to slip though and hit the wall behind her cage. A foot away. There is a very good reason I keep a roll of toilet paper on my computer desk.

I wipe down the grate every night when I change her paper, and the bars as necessary (some places every other day, some make it longer. It depends on where she likes to hang out most.) For the most part I've managed to work out perch placement to keep them getting pooped on to a minimum but I'll also wipe them down every night if I see poo on them, maybe once a week. The perches will get a deep clean or replaced as needed, maybe once a month for a couple lower ones, just a dusting for the higher ones.

If I keep up on the wiping I don't have to do a major wash very often. I have to because in winter, October to March really, it isn't exactly appealing to drag the cage out on the back porch with a bucket of water. I try to wipe it down well enough and frequently enough I only have to do two really major washings a year and try to time them out for summer and fall.

 

[tpoduje]

Ours is flighted and poops on everything, all the time. When he's i his cage, he also has a habit of pooping in odd difficult to clean places. Thank goodness they're little. Can't imagine the Too's going that much...

 

[Picaroon]

Picaroon has 3 cages, playstand and a mini travel cage. Travel cage and playstand are without paper, they get wiped down as they're used. As for the rest...

Water bowl gets washed and refilled every time she is to enter a cage so it's fresh.
Fill and place foraging toys (she's FINALLY learning to forage, yay!) twice a day.
Every 2-3 a week I change paper, wipe down pooped perches as needed unless very obvious then it's immediate.
Every 4-6 weeks is deep cleaning and perch/toy changing. Every cage gets redone and perches get moved around to make new environments. Each cage has a staple item that never changes.

She also has a routine of eating her mash on the kitchen counter and drinking/bathing from the faucet. HUGE mess on the counter to clean every day. And the floor since she has to throw the stuff she doesn't like. Love her, but how high maintenance can you get?!

 

[LovieLover]

I deep clean my lovies cages every week. I will take them all apart and scrub them down in the sink with water and apple cider vinegar. Daily I do regular cleaning-wiping down the cage bars, perches, toys and anything else with poo on it. I change the paper everyday and clean their bowls with soap and water before feeding them. I will also vacuum around their cages every day or so to keep the seed they toss around cleaned up and to keep the dander levels down. Once a month I will clean their cages with a diluted bleach/water mix to kill any germs or bacteria. If you do bleach clean make sure it is diluted well, rinsed several times and completely dry before returning the birds to the cage!! Lovebirds are extremely messy for how tiny they are and you have to keep up with them!

 

[waterfaller1]

Hah..don't ever get a softbill like an aracari or a mousebird! You will find poop in places you never thought it could reach. I have noticed with Gryphon at least, when he used to have the really big flight I did not have this problem as much. With the smaller cage he insists on hanging on the front and pooping all over it. And their poop times are 4X what parrots are.

 

[Irishj9]

Yes Lovebirds are messy. I got tired of the constant cleaning and started a new routine.

1) hang all lovebird cages on wall
2) Remove trays so dirt seed poop falls to the cement floor
3) Hose out floor every evening
4) Mist cages with 50/50 water/vinegar spray every evening
5) Proper clean once a week

JP