BIRD BATHING

BIRD BATHING IS NECESSARY FOR OPTIMUM BIRD HEALTH

Just as with our human species, bathing plays a significant role in the maintenance of health and contentment for avian species. In our flocks, bath day always seems to turn into a day of joy--especially amongst those captive birds that have learned to enjoy water as it is offered. As a matter of fact, I don't think I ever met a bird that did not like water. It is usually up to me to figure out the correct way to offer the bath.

With baby birds, the matter is simple. One has only to fill a glass pie pan with warm water (to ankle depth) and begin splashing it gently with fingers when baby Conures, for example, are nearby, and chances are you will have wet, bathing Conures in a jiffy. Teaching fledglings about baths at an early age will create pet birds that associate water with fun! Mature pet birds may make a habit of comically diving under a running tap when owners are washing hands or vegetables. We caution keepers of such "water birds" that pouring hot tea water or a bubbling saucepan can present irresistible danger to pets!

Cockatiels, budgies, princess, bourkes and rosellas, being more the prim and proper types, may prefer warm mist from a clean spray bottle. We put hot tap water--perhaps a squeeze of citrus juice or a drop of eucalyptus oil--in the spritzer so it comes out warm mist.

Cockatoos love the same method, though the older, wiser ones often want to get their beaks right down at the spray nozzle (and we all know what happens when a handfed cockatoo comes in close proximity to PLASTIC!) While macaws taught to bathe as babies seem to want every part of their anatomy wetted including their tongues; and when they spread their great wings, it proves handy to have a sprayer in each hand.

My favorites are the amazons. Watching eager amazons bathe is material for funniest home videos. It matters little how we offer baths to an amazon--as long as it resembles rain, they will contort, strut, babble and shake-wet their feathers to dark saturation. Eight-week babies even before flying, love a supervised sprinkler on the lawn or your bathroom shower.

Yes, many is the bird we have trained to enjoy showering in the home. The first day or two we put pets up on the curtain rod and let them watch. Thereafter we gently splash drops at them and finally take them down to be wetted in the spray bouncing off shoulders. Screeching, singing and other noises of delight entice shy birds to try the healthy fun.

It has become a favorite technique of mine to take two birds who do not get along into the shower for social training during the "truce" conditions of a bath.

One pet conure went through a period when he would shower with me every day for weeks. Unlike other parrots who most prefer a fine spray, he would sit under a jet stream of water from the showerhead to his back, close his eyes and relax for the duration. I used to worry that the frequent baths would dry his skin or feathers, but we observed no ill effects in three years of such activity.

One must be careful when allowing a bird to bathe to such wetness that it is in no danger of becoming chilled while drying. Some of the conditions under which we will postpone bath time are: 1) In the afternoon after the sun has reached its high point and has begun to descend, 2) If air conditioning is on, 3) With fledglings or birds not yet totally feathered, 4) For birds not acclimatized, and 5) If a bird is not feeling up to par, of course.

It is of vital importance with many species to offer baths when the hen is setting on eggs. Wetted breast feathers help the female control the humidity in the incubation chamber, and hence the evaporation rate of moisture from the eggs, especially in dry climes and during the week prior to pipping.

Also in our breeder cages, we take not if squabbling occurs between a pair when fresh water is offered. Some pairs have been given bowls large enough for two. Non-bowl bathers must be supplied a sprinkler.

But the most awesomely joyful psittacines on bath day are the lories. If amazons are crocodiles in feathers, then surely the lories must be the otters! I declare, a pet lory can spend 20 minutes and dozen-pretzel positions just washing behind one ear! And then the other ear. As with canaries and finches, lories will bathe every day. To keep these birds in enclosures with only a pipette watering system denies them one of their primary joys in life.

If owners wish to provide pets and breeders with supreme happiness on bath day, try going out and cutting clumps of leafy branches (known plants away from toxin-sprayed roadsides, please!) and after rinsing them, offer them to your avian subjects sopping wet. It was hilarious to watch our baby hyacinth clamoring through the wet branches we hang up, trying to get all the water he could on his feathers, oblivious to the senegals, pionus, conures and caiques also trying to stake out a spot to "leaf bathe". As I recall, that was the day we decided we needed bigger branches!

All small hookbills, parakeets, canaries, finches, etc. seem to love this natural way of bathing. It has proven to be a means of coaxing timid birds who retreat from the mist bottle to bathe themselves. Amongst wet greenery, something instinctual seems to happen, prompting hesitant birds to get wet. But if they don't? Well, bath day is bath day, and whatever else it may be, it is good for avian health. So everyone--even the disgruntled derbyan or timneh gray trying to go unnoticed up in the corner--gets a moderate wetting. And afterwards we all feel better. Humidity goes up in the birdroom; the fresh damp greenery smells like a jungle; it's especially good for those birds prone to sneezing and those getting baths as part of feather-picking therapy.

And now for a half-hour preen. . and maybe a short nap.

This article passed on to us from Pretty Bird's Customers

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