Fun during Cage Cleaning Time

[birdmom]

Does your bird participate or comment while you clean their cage? Please post your stories here. Any inforamation you can share about how you clean your bird's cage will be viewed as a great contribution to the topic! Thanks birdmom.

When I clean Buddi's cage, (I do the thorough cleanup one time per week for her since she's not too messy and her white powder coated California Cage is easy to clean off. I had it sandblasted and re powder coated earlier this year.) She always comments when I come out with the Poop Off sprayer and start squirting and scrubbing with paper towels. I should own stock in paper towels Buddi always says: Mmm Hmm. I thought that was funny until I got Charlie!

I have had him since April and I noticed he liked to watch and would call me a Poop. "Joanne you Poop" "You want some?" "You Poop". If I laugh, he laughs. Makes cleaning his cage fun, which is saying alot. Here is today's story,

Breaking Headline News:

**Large Male African Grey Parrot attempts to Commandeer Cage-Cleanup Efforts during massive Poop-Off project**

At about 2PM this afternoon in the living room of a Sacramento area apartment, an African Grey Parrot named Charlie (he-who insists its properly pronounced with a British accent- Chahlee) was seen removing all his toys from inside his cage while his steward Joanne Anonymous, diligently worked to clean all the poo and food residue he has accumulated over a record one-day period.

The birds owner claimed that "Chah-lee" calls her a Poop and asks her if she wants some Poo? when his cage is dirty and said he seems to go out of his way to make it so on an occasion just like this. We couldn't get much more out of her in the way of a statement.

What we do know is today, to add to the messy chaos, the 4-year old inhabitant of this monstrous black beauty of an engineering nightmare who resides in the living room of the apartment, attempted to contribute to the clean-up activities by insisting his steward remove all toys from the area and then tried to take over the project snatching a spray bottle of Poop-Off! No record of an attempted burglary charge has been found.

The bird's owner, a Joanne Anonymous, is a mid-career (whatever that is) graduate student studying Library Science part time at San Jose State University and works part-time as a testing evaluator for a national publishing company. (She claims she cannot work full-time bcuz the bird takes up so much time...right) Her attention to detail is obvious so we will not challenge the accuracy of the details that follow:

According to the report, the Joanne claimed that while finishing up an entire roll of paper towels she was scrubbing with her head down, and that Chah-lee nipped at her hair, laughing and mocking her. He then proceeded to climb to the top of his cage above her and removed all the toys hanging from the top of his cage, which then fell in a pile on the bottom of the just-cleaned cage floor, narrowly missing her head. The accident was timed perfectly when she reached back inside of the cage to clean it, projecting the entire top half of her body and head inside the huge monstrous cage that could sink a battleship.

(It is the opinion of This Reporter that Somebody was only trying to help her) however; according to witness reports at the scene some real trouble started when Chah-lee became more diligent, attempting to commando the spray bottle, apparently sensing that he could do a better job himself. The witness stated that after Joanne thanked Chah-lee for trying to help and assured him she would make sure that his toys were also clean. At that point an argument ensued, when Joanne attempted to remove the spray bottle of cleaner from the clutches of the big-bad-boy and scold him appropriately. According to our witness, Chah-lee took offense and protested, boinging his steward with the tippy tip of his very sharp beak into the side of her forearm, perhaps trying to make her give him back the bottle. He appeared to feel that he could do a better job. It was not clear to on-lookers whether Chah-lee intended to do irreparable harm to her or if he was just fooling around so we attempted to get a statement from her however she refuses to comment on the ugly matter.

A source on the inside told an informant that when the attack occurred, Joanne was observed snatching Chah-lee up (while he strugged to get away from her, running all around the top of the monstrous cage bringing much attention to his plight) and then removed him from the area. Fortunately for her, we noted that she is a statuesque figure, towering over the five-foot tall cage at an astounding 70.5 inches in height.

(The informant said Chah-lee was last seen quietly perched in a small travel cage on top of an extra washing machine in the corner of the bedroom of Miss Anonymous, and overheard her saying in a loud firm voice: "Timeout Charlie". It seems poor Charlie didn't stand a chance in hell of cleaning his own cage. Reported today, 19 December 2007.

[birdmom]

Cage cleaning:

I use Poop-Off, I have a sprayer and a scrubber bottle and I refill them with a large gallon bottle.
I prefer not to use a pressure sprayer, since I live in an apartment but it also is water, and I had a cage that was cleaned that way and it had developed tiny little pinhead rust holes all over the paint. It was a Cal Cage and has been sandblasted and re powdercoated.

Paper Towels: does anyone have a better idea? they're so expensive I go thru alot.

Toys: I find the best way to clean toys is run them thru the dishwasher with No Detergent I spray with Poop Off first, and I use the heated drying cycle.

I don't know how wooden toys would fare, it seems to make my cutting boards split. The wood toys and wood ladder I set in my bathtub, spray with Poop Off and then let the hot shower steam it off, then I scrub them with a scrub brush. Not too often.

I put the acrylic and plastic toys in there and its a great way to clean the rope toys and swings off. But you gotta make sure those dry out completely,I hang em outside on my patio.

Any other ideas? B) birdmom

Post edited by: birdmom, at: 2007/12/20 00:14<br><br>Post edited by: birdmom, at: 2007/12/20 00:16

[briansmum]

HAHA very funny joanne!

your cleaning ideas sound good to me, but don't be too liberal with the poop off as while it says it us untoxic it does have a bit of a pong which i am wary of.

brian gets very excited when i clean his cage and likes to sit on the door saying "ooooh!" repeatedly, then he waits for me to get sat on the floor to tend to the tray and flies off to chew on things he knows he's not supposed to.

this is because, due to a pelvic injury it takes me a while to get up from the floor, so he gets a good few chomps on my furniture before i can get to him. :P

[Laurie]

That was awesome! Karma for you!
I keep the bottom of Klaus' cage completely covered in newspaper. Each day I pick up toys, roll the paper up & toss it, then put new paper in. The only toys allowed "loose" (ie not attached to the side or top of the cage) are ones that can be tossed when dirty. These are the cheap cat-toy balls w/bells in them, I think they run 6 for a dollar, empty, rinsed containers (yogurt, margarine, little juice bottles), misc little plastic things that once belonged to my son and who now is too cool to play with them, wooden alphabet blocks (I think I got about 2 dozen of those for $3), etc. The toys that are hanging don't really get poop on them. He has a ladder that does get dirty, that I rinse with hot water, then use little scrubby sponges that I get 6 for 99 cents, so I can toss the little sponge when done. Klaus usually hangs out on top of the cage while all this is going on, throwing the toys from the top of the cage down to the floor (he has some that we just keep up there). He gets excited because dinner is right after cage cleaning. He's funny because I take the bowl out of its holder so I can dump, clean & refill and he's so obsessed with food that he searches around the empty food bowl holder, then thouroughly investigates the empty bowl as if to say, "Help, Mom - I'm starving!".

[ziggy]

Hey Joanne,
This is a very cute way to tell a story . Like most birds they keep you laughing almost all of the time.
Charlie is a trip he sounds like Ziggy. Little brats

[danmcq]

Hahahahahahaha Great story Joanne!!!

I would love to see a video of that :-)

The mental image you painted was priceless :-)

[graciecatt]

I am a new Grey owner. But what I have tried was to just clean a portion of Tylers cage at a time. The food bowls and paper liner all get changed/cleaned daily, but I always clean a side of the cage daily with a brush and baking soda/warm water and then rinse and dry with paper towel. I also like EZ Care Quick Clean by Kaytee. I have heard that Grapefruit Seed Extract works really well too, but I haven't tried it yet. Does anyone have any other suggestions?

[Hannah_Rae]

As far as paper towels are concerned, why not use microfiber rags that can be washed in hot water? Some are super absorbent, and would definitely cut down on waste and cost.

[SchroedersJen]

Excellent post Joanne, makles me feel very blessed that I don't have to wage war on the bird in order to wage war on the mess inside the cage. As for paper towels, I don't use many. I have a poop scraper that has a round scrape on one end and a flat one on the other and that gets off most of the poo. I use a few towels to wipe the pan on the bottom after taking out the newspaper. All in all it works well. You can put the scraper in the dishwasher when finished or run it under the faucet for a bit. As for my keeper... Schroeder sits very calmly in the corner, grinding his beak, when I clean the cage. As soon as I finish, he waddles back to the cage, climbs inside, up to the tallest perch and poops squarly in the center of the cage. If I try to get him to go potty before he goes back in, he will refuse. He is usually jonny on the spot with the go potty command, so I am inclined to think this dirty boy just feels more at home in a dirty cage.

[Dave007]

Wow, what an exciting thread! So informative. The methods vary so much that it takes my breath away. Another thrilling spine tingling thing is the products that are used.
And yes, I can't forget the most important thing here..The thread is also allowing me to have fun and I'm feeling so connected. Makes me warm all over.