Pet Bird Safety:
6 Things to Do in Your Home to Insure Pet Bird Safety

If you plan to allow your bird to fly around your home, here are 6 things to do to prepare your home to make it a safe place for your bird to explore.

Avoid Potential Drowning

Close bathroom doors, put the lids down on your toilets, and cover any pools of water including pots on your stove. Birds can drown in open water, particularly birds who have had their wings clipped and may not be able to navigate away from danger as easily as a bird with unclipped wings.

Get Rid of Poisonous Plants

Christmas trees (both live and artificial) and their decorations, as well as a variety of other house plants can be poisonous to your avian friend. Potentially toxic plants to birds include Amaryllis, Avocado, Azaleas, Christmas Tree Pine Needles, Chrysanthemum, Holly, Lilies, Tulips, and Wandering Jew to name a few. So when bringing in plants for seasonal holidays be sure to research toxicity of the plant and its possible affect on your bird.

Cover Mirrors and Windows

Many birds suffer severe injury and even death when they encounter windows or mirrors. From a bird's eye view, they are easily mistake for open space. So take care to close off rooms that have mirrors, and close the curtains at windows to avoid this potential danger.

Clip Wings

Clipping your bird's wings protects your bird from flying into danger inside the house such as ceiling fans, and being in harms way outside the house. When done correctly, clipping is not painful to the bird. Clipping wings after a bird learns to fly is what most experts recommend. After your bird's wings are clipped be careful to remove other pets from the area when the bird is out of its cage because your bird may not be able to escape quickly enough from your dog, cat, or other pet.

Minimize Electrical Cords

Put electrical cords behind furniture as much as possible, and cords that must be exposed can be put in clear plastic tubing that can be purchased at most hardware stores.

Keep Air Quality High

Birds have an extremely sensitive respiratory system which is why miners use to take canaries into the mine to detect unhealthy air. The canaries would die long before humans if the air quality dropped. This gives you some idea of how much cleaner the air needs to be in your home for your bird to flourish. A high efficiency particle arresting or HEPA air purifier removes airborne pollutants as small as .3 microns and is an excellent way to insure that airborne pollutants are removed and your bird's air quality remains high.

Debbie Davis, President of PurerAir.com has been married for 23 years, is mom to a beautiful 5 year old daughter and golden retriever. Formerly a music teacher grades K-12, she has taught elementary, middle, and high school marching band. She was also honored as Teacher of the Year at her school in 1999. She has served as organist and choir director of churches of many denominations, and in 2001 she served as guest organist for evensong at Canterbury Cathedral in England. She currently enjoys running her home-based business because it gives her the opportunity to be more of a part of her daughter's life.

by Debbie Davis - 9/10/08

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