Giving Your Bird the Best Quality of Life

Give your bird the best quality of life

About 6 months ago I was contacted by an elderly relative with a request to take care of his Cockatiel. Although he enjoyed the companionship that gave him the bird, the bird was cared for by his recently deceased wife, and he struggled to give the bird the attention and care that it deserved. I had no hesitation and said yes right away and told him that I would find it a good home.

He returned with a gray male Cockatiel. It was an adult plumage, which appeared to be about a year old. When prompted, I found out that the bird was purchased at a pet shop about 18 months earlier. It was in good condition, but seemed a little tired in the cage. 

The moment my eyes on the bird cage I knew that his owner knew little about making a caged bird happy. The cage was too small - only suitable for a budgie. There was a stick in one end at the top, the other end is occupied by a large swing that Cockatiel never used. This meant that it could not jump from perch to perch. The cage contained a ladder, toy, mirror and a large piece of cuttlefish bone. There was not much room for the Cockatiel to move, and he preferred to cling to the bars.

Food and water containers were not an integral part of the cage so that his hands had to enter it to fill them. Water tank was a plastic hook-on by a violent violet color - the kind of color as a sensitive bird owner would not buy. A millet spray hung in front of a gravity feeder and hide content. It did not matter because it was obvious that the content will not be touched by any self-respecting Cockatiel. It was a parakeet mix, which included colorful little pills. As the pellets were heavier than the small seed, they fell in the accessible part of the feeder, to disguise the small seed that the Cockatiel would have eaten if he was resourceful enough to throw the pills. Other food container with Panicum millet and this, together with millet spray, was his only diet. 

It seemed to me that the whole country, there must be thousands of budgerigars and cockatiels live in small cages like this, furnished with strange objects made of plastic or acrylic (toys) and shiny objects (mirrors), there is no interest to them and just get wrong. Tame birds love their toys - but they are a different story. I welcome the bird owner who wants to find a new home for him and leave him in the spare bedroom where he had been temporarily sent. But I could not help but wonder the bird had been purchased initially. 

Why am I on this story? Simply because many readers will come across pets in similar situations. I think that they should not be afraid to gently point out how the quality of life for a bird could be improved with just a little thought and effort.

The bird's diet could have been improved with the addition of some chickweed and seeding of grass, which was probably growing in his owner's garden or nearby. The strange seed mixture could have been replaced with a more realistic parakeets or Cockatiel mixture containing a good proportion of canary seed and mixed Millet and some other small seeds. The biggest improvement of his life, short of the aviary, where he now lives, would have been a big cage where he could stretch his wings. It will include Twiggy apple branches with fresh bark which to sip, not smooth plastic perches. The cage design will include food and water containers and a pull-out tray on the floor to prevent intrusive means of a hand into the cage. Too often an inexpensive cage was purchased for an inexpensive bird.