Andrea ([info]andreags) wrote in [info]cockatiels,
@ 2004-11-20 11:48:00
Previous Entry  Add to memories!  Tell a Friend!  Next Entry
Stop throwing stuff in your water!
A couple months ago, my younger bird, Merlin, started dumping stuff in the water dish. He'll chew off a piece of the lining paper and dump it in there, or maybe a couple of seeds or feathers that have dropped to the cage bottom. I change their water every day, so it was tolerable.

However, now my older bird Cinders seems to have picked up on this habit from him. I wash out their water dish in the morning, and literally five minutes later it is dirty again! This is driving me nuts! I don't want my birdies drinking dirty water =(

Any suggestions?

(Post a new comment)


[info]zhai
2004-11-20 08:03 pm UTC (link)
Smeagol does this too. He likes to dunk his toys in the water to make it change color. He also likes to drop his toys in his food bowl. I would think it has something to do with putting the toy down where he can reach it again, but he has a nice big shelf where he could easily do the same thing anywhere else.

The only thing I can think of is you can try to make it less convenient for him to do that. Raise the water dish so that it's not so conveniently close to the lining paper (where do you have it?), or maybe even add a second water dish to the cage. Some birds like a 'play' water dish and another that they drink from. Is it possible that they're just flapping their wings and stuff is blowing into the dish? If that's the case, you could try a water dish with a hood -- I have one of those for my finch and budgies and it works very well. The finch likes to stick his head inside the hood and sing, to make this sort of old-fashioned-radio sound. ;)

Realistically, I wouldn't worry about it too much, so long as you're changing the water regularly. I change Smeagol's once or twice a day, or whenever I see he's dyed it. =P

(Reply to this)


[info]selasphorus
2004-11-20 08:05 pm UTC (link)
I've given my birds a water bottle and a water dish; the water bottle is nice because they can't mess in it so the water is clean (as long as it's changed regularly), but they still love to bathe and mess with their water dish. So if I'm not able to clean out the dish as often as I'd like (being out most of the day, etc), I know they do have a water bottle.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

[info]zhai
2004-11-20 10:45 pm UTC (link)
Heh, I like the fonts you did with your icon, I didn't notice that before. =)

(Reply to this) (Parent)

[info]kasatka
2004-11-20 11:59 pm UTC (link)
I have a little tube (that sits outside the cage) with a small spigot inside. It's hard for them to accomplish things with the spigot being so small.

It looks something like this, but a bit bigger.

(Reply to this)

Create an Account
Forgot your login or password?
Login w/ OpenID
English • Español • Deutsch • Русский…