Parrot proofing your house.

[cml]

Lets start a thread with advice and information on how to parrot proof your house, I am sure you all got tons of ideas and clever solutions.

The living room, appart from the parrot room, is where the parrots hang out. I try my best to always improve upon the parrot proofing, as I discover or think of new things. My parrots have started to spend more time on the floor playing and running around, so I really need the room safe.

Some things Ive done during the past, and that I'd like to share:

Electricity and parrots dont match, and a modern home is full of wires and cables. This is NOT good, because frankly all it takes is one bite into a leading cable and BZZZT, no more parrot.
What can you do? Thing is, in a living room you usually have a TV, and thus a snake nest of cables. If a parrot falls down behind the TV, gets scared and bites in panic, thats not good at all.

Its possible to sort out though, and here's how Ive done it. All cables are put into cable tubes for added durability (all the way up to the connector on the TV for every single cable, ((damn that took some time to install ^^, but worth it))), and everything else is neatly inside the cabinet the TV is standing on. No more space for a bird to fall down into, the new distance between the cabinet and the wall is less than an inch.

Before:

And after:


Another thing is pictures on the walls, Stitch and Leroy started landing on them, until one fell down, crushed the frame, and nearly the bird with it. After that, all frames in the living room are not hanging on the wall, but are fastened with screws:

Wires going to stuff can either (if possible), be put into these cable splines (first pic), or when going to a lamp or something into these cable tubes (second pic):



When you're done, you cant see that you've parrot proofed the room, and if anything it looks a lot better and cleaner without all the cables:


A few other tips is to make sure the parrot cannot fall down behind things, use blinds on the windows, avoid or train the birds to know mirrors etc.

I never let the birds into the kitchen at all, I dont feel thats a room that I could parrot proof enough, nor would I want them there when I cook etc anyway.

Keep your ideas coming !

[JaydeParrot]

These are misadventures of my 2 open cage policy 's resulting in parrot proofing:

Seems a bit extreme but I've taken to keeping all my books in my parrot's rarely used travel cage, cuz I went into their room one day to find them eating my books, they've also munched their way through a medium sized wooden clock and have chewed such a big hole in the corner of a cupboard that I can easily fit my fist through it.

I used to have fake spider webs and wind chimes in my room but they had to go because the birds got tangled when they flew.

I also had a policy of not leaving my clothes cupboard open so the birds couldn't get trapped, left it open while I left the room to get something, came back, closed the cupboard and went about my day as normal. A couple of hours later I went back to the room and noticed that I now only had one parrot, I sat in the room listening until the lost parrot started giving out contact calls- From inside the cupboard...

I also nearly lost that same bird (this incident earned him his name 'Hide'), under a piano, he freaked out and managed to squeeze his entire body through a 2.5 inch gap under a piano and then got stuck, I knew if I tried to pick up the heavy piano he'd only go further under and I wouldn't be able to hold onto the piano forever. I got out a gardening glove (he hates gloves) waved it under the piano until I got a bite, I pulled and he popped out, I quickly pushed newspaper under the piano so he couldn't do it again.

[HBP]

I find its pretty similar to baby proofing. I took the chains out of the bottom of my blinds in addition to carefully hiding cords.
They don't close all the way and a slight breeze moves them like crazy but my bird (and my kids) is safe.

[Pajarita]

Almost all my birds live in their own room which has tile floors and all the edges and mouldings covered with corner beads so they cannot chew them. The electrical wires are covered with a yellow towel (the floor is also yellow) first and then with the grass I use as bedding for the floor so the birds never bother them. Right now, I have steel screens in the windows (the hardware stores that repair the screens don't have any but you can buy a roll on your own and they will gladly use it for them -I tried the 'pet proof' material and it did not last two days, the lovies chew right through them!) but I need to put chainlink in the outside of the windows, just in case (years ago, when I was living in Pa, there was a big storm and a branch came flying, broke the window, knocked down the screen and some of my birds got out so now I always put double screens in the windows).

[marie83]

Almost all my birds live in their own room which has tile floors and all the edges and mouldings covered with corner beads so they cannot chew them. The electrical wires are covered with a yellow towel (the floor is also yellow) first and then with the grass I use as bedding for the floor so the birds never bother them. Right now, I have steel screens in the windows (the hardware stores that repair the screens don't have any but you can buy a roll on your own and they will gladly use it for them -I tried the 'pet proof' material and it did not last two days, the lovies chew right through them!) but I need to put chainlink in the outside of the windows, just in case (years ago, when I was living in Pa, there was a big storm and a branch came flying, broke the window, knocked down the screen and some of my birds got out so now I always put double screens in the windows).

Oh heck did you get your birds back?

[pennyandrocky]

thanks cml i stopped putting pictures on the wall for this reason. i tried putting them in a hutch my uncle gave me but mya decided she wanted the hutch for herself so she ripped the top off now my pictures are put away.

[floridasun13]

Slightly OT, but still regards to the house issue....since we cannot have scented candles, oil plug in thingies, etc. with birds how do you all keep your house smelling clean and fresh?

I have 2 dogs and am still considering adding a new family member of a quaker, but even though my house is clean, I still like to have it smell nice and fresh with those items that I know I would have to give up. Is there anything in particular that you do now with birds to keep your home smelling nice and clean or do you just let it be?

Also, other than candles and plug ins, is there anything else to avoid, in particular like scented cleaning products, specific countertop type cleaners if the bird will be walking on the surfaces, etc?

Thanks!

[Pajarita]

Almost all my birds live in their own room which has tile floors and all the edges and mouldings covered with corner beads so they cannot chew them. The electrical wires are covered with a yellow towel (the floor is also yellow) first and then with the grass I use as bedding for the floor so the birds never bother them. Right now, I have steel screens in the windows (the hardware stores that repair the screens don't have any but you can buy a roll on your own and they will gladly use it for them -I tried the 'pet proof' material and it did not last two days, the lovies chew right through them!) but I need to put chainlink in the outside of the windows, just in case (years ago, when I was living in Pa, there was a big storm and a branch came flying, broke the window, knocked down the screen and some of my birds got out so now I always put double screens in the windows).

Oh heck did you get your birds back?

Sorry I did not answer this before, I had not seen it. No, not all of them. I got the bigger ones (Quaker and Senegal -they stayed in the trees surrounding the house and although they would not come down the first evening, they did the following morning when I called them) that had flown out and the two budgies came back on their own the following night (they perched on the outside of the windows so I just opened them and they came in on their own) but I never found the three lovebirds, the dove or the Brazilian cardinal.

[Weka]

Thought I'd resurrect this thread instead of starting a new one.

As I mentioned in my intro, we don't have a bird yet but are in the process of researching and getting our home ready. There is one problem that I haven't found an answer for -- what do you do if your home plan includes a foyer like this?



The upper window's ledge is 12 feet straight up, and the lamp is hanging from a 20ft ceiling and has a chain (with intertwined cord) that says, "I'm a parrot toy!" Since the main part of the house is entirely open, basically one gigantic "L" shaped area, I'm wondering how this could work with a flighted bird. Also, I'm trying to figure out how to mitigate a likely escape route through the front door.

Any thoughts/ideas?

Thanks!

[Weka]

Addendum: I just found this article that Michael posted earlier this year. Very insightful and sobering reading:

http://trainedparrot.com/Flight_Safety/

I do hope we can come up with a workable solution for the doors. (In addition to the front door in the above photo, we have a sliding glass door some 40 feet opposite, as well as a garage door.)