- Joined
- 3/7/19
- Messages
- 623
So my quaker, Gus, has plenty of places to land around the house. Stations with toys and treats and everything else a birdie could want. Despite this, he recently began hanging out on the TV. I get the appeal. It's warm on his toes, and it gives him a more central view of the room than some of the other perches (although he has other options that are much higher up). It's also the closest place he can sit to his cage without actually being ON the cage. Then, yesterday, I watched him fly to the TV three times... just to poop and fly away again. I didn't mind the occasional visit in passing, but my TV is NOT your heated toilet seat, Gus.
So I looked around the house to see what might keep him from landing there and discovered.... *drumroll* ... aluminum foil!
I stretched a piece along the top of the TV, molding it so that it gripped the top and leaving a portion sticking up so that if he tries to land on it, it will flop and collapse under his weight, and just generally feel weird enough to make him fly away again.
I haven't gotten to see that happen, because so far, just the sight of the foil, all crumply and shiny and reflecting light in weird ways, has kept him away. Twice he made as if to land there and did an about-face in midair.
He's given me a couple dirty looks from his boing, but overall, the foil method is a success! Whether it will continue to repel him, I don't know, but it doesn't have to work forever. It just has to work long enough for him to develop other habits about where to poop.
This morning I googled to see what solutions others have found for the same problem, and it appears aluminum foil isn't on the radar, so I thought I'd share here in case anyone else is frustrated with the same issue.
So I looked around the house to see what might keep him from landing there and discovered.... *drumroll* ... aluminum foil!
I stretched a piece along the top of the TV, molding it so that it gripped the top and leaving a portion sticking up so that if he tries to land on it, it will flop and collapse under his weight, and just generally feel weird enough to make him fly away again.
I haven't gotten to see that happen, because so far, just the sight of the foil, all crumply and shiny and reflecting light in weird ways, has kept him away. Twice he made as if to land there and did an about-face in midair.
He's given me a couple dirty looks from his boing, but overall, the foil method is a success! Whether it will continue to repel him, I don't know, but it doesn't have to work forever. It just has to work long enough for him to develop other habits about where to poop.
This morning I googled to see what solutions others have found for the same problem, and it appears aluminum foil isn't on the radar, so I thought I'd share here in case anyone else is frustrated with the same issue.