Sharing toys amongst your flock

[entrancedbymyGCC]

When you have a toy that is suitable for more than one member of your flock and it's not a destructible toy (I'm thinking acrylic, metal, hard plastic foraging toys) do you just move it back and forth or do you disinfect it between locations?

[Michael]

I'm not sure if this question is more about the disinfection aspect or the sharing aspect so I'll answer more generally. My two parrots reside in cages with less than 12 inches separating them and they do come in direct contact with one another during their own little fights when they are out. They are both flighted so it's not even possible to prevent contact if I wanted to. Therefore I do not sterilize anything that goes between birds.

For example they both use the same training perches and trees when they are out in the room. They touch the same training props. They play with the same foot toys that are out. Heck they even steel toys/nuts right from each other's beaks.

So naturally when it comes to rotating cage toys, I have no problem grabbing a toy out of one bird's cage when it got bored of it and just sticking it in the others. This actually gets much much more use out of the toys because after they've been chewed up by another bird, it creates a new angle and interest for the other one. For example I will first give brand new toys straight to Kili cause she can play with them without doing too much damage and enjoy them in whole. Then I give them to Truman and he'll tear apart anything he feels like. Then I can give it back to Kili and the split strands and pieces are easier/interesting for her to play with all over again.

For all these reasons, toy sharing is not only economic but also more fun for the birds.

[patdbunny]

I don't disinfect. I just wash if/when they get yucky.

No point in the disinfecting unless you have a quarantine situation. Your flock/family are all sharing the same cooties. **MWAH** (kissy noise. transmission of cooties. you get the idea.)

[kaylayuh]

My birds move back and forth between cages. Moreso Pigpen and Cheney Bird than No Name. Pigpen plays with Cheney Bird's toys and Cheney Bird plays with the budgies' toys. I figure they're sharing anyway, I don't really have to disinfect. I do wipe them down if they get particularly nasty, though that's rare.

[pchela]

I just move them from cage to cage unless they need regular cleaning. The birds are close together anyway so I don't see any reason to disinfect before sharing toys. They all have community toys on playstands and on top of cages anyway.

[zazanomore]

The toys I've given them are the toys they've got.

That being said though, they spend hours in each others cages, tasting each others food and playing with each others toys.

I don't disinfect their toys whenever one of them touches their other birds cage. What's the point?

[Chris&Akilah]

If it was really neccessary to sterlize toys when switched between two parrots in the same house, well, is it even safe to keep them in the same house? Unless you've rigged up something impressive with your air ducts, birds kept in the same house are going to be exposed to each other's germs no matter what.

[kaylayuh]

I should also say that Pigpen likes to take shredder balls right from Cheney Bird's beak. I don't think there's really a way to sterilize them.

[entrancedbymyGCC]

Well, in our case, our birds don't ever make physical contact. So any microbes that were transmissible by air or likely to be on surfaces that had been stood upon, anything that might be communicated hand to bird, that goes without saying. But beak-to-beak in our household is unlikely and they don't typically have exposure to each other's poop. So if something saliva borne was sufficiently tenacious to survive on a toy, or there were traces of bacteria from stray poop, a shared toy would represent the only likely vector for that. Am I the only one who has birds that don't have full access to each other's environments?

[kaylayuh]

It's almost impossible for me to keep my birds separate. As soon as I let them out together, they started swapping cages, eating eachother's food, playing with eachother's toys. My apartment is tiny and my birds will all be flighted, so it's reasonable to assume that they'll all have access to eachother. I think it's pretty common to do.