Pet parrot care can become very expensive if we do not learn the proper way to care for our pet parrots correctly.

One of the main areas that will keep costs down in the long run is in choosing the proper parrot cages. Many people do not put too much concern about this particular purchase because they assume that any parrot cage will do if it is not too small for the pet parrots. This is a very wrong assumption. If you choose the wrong parrots cage you will run into many problems down the road.

Many people will rely on the advice of the pet shop from where parrot cages are usually sold. Please bear in mind, that not all people who work at a pet shop are experts in the care of pet parrots. Many work on commission basis and will try and sell you something that gives them a good commission so do your own research before buying your pet parrots.

There are a few things that I think we should discuss here before you run out and buy your parrots cage.

1. Make sure it is big enough! Remember your pet parrots will be spending much of their time in their cages so be sure that the cage is big enough to give them room to roam around a bit. If the parrots cage is too small you will end up with the pet parrots feathers all bent and messy looking. This will upset your bird because pet parrots love to preen themselves and if they find their feathers are all amuck they will try picking them out. Pet parrots are notorious for feather picking anyways so you do not want to give them an excuse to do it or inadvertantly get a bad habit started.

2. Don’t get a cage that opens up on the top so that a little play gym can be added up on top of the cage. Here is an example below:

Althought this is a very nice parrot cage, we don’t want our pet parrots to climb around on top of the cage. Why? I will let you know a little secret that many people will not tell you. You will notice that when you get your pet parrots they will go to the highest spot that they can fly to whenever they get the chance. This is very normal behavior for parrots because in the wild this is the spot with the best vantage point. They can easily see their predators from this view. I am sure you have heard the expression “wanting to get a birds eye view of a situation”, well this is what that is. Parrots want to get to the highest spot they can and then they feel secure knowing that they have a good eye on the situation.

Why wouldn’t we want our pet parrots to have this advantage? It seems strange that I would say in one breath that this is what they love and makes them feel secure and then in the next breath tell you not to allow them to get up high. The reason we dont’ want our pet parrots high, especially on the parrot cages is because when they feel secure, they feel in control.

In order to train your pet parrots properly we should never give them the upper hand like this. So, because of this reason we don’t buy cages with play gyms on top, or ones that open up at top like this example below:

The best cages for pet parrots are wide or long and high. Pet Parrots need lots of room to move around in their cages or they can get stir crazy. (not really, that is an old saying, but they will get bored more easily).

Also be careful never to buy a round bird cage for any bird, even a budgie or finch. Birds need to spread their wings and fly and they can’t fly vertically, they need the horizontal area to fly on so please don’t buy cylindrical cages like this example below:

I’m going to stop here for now and pick it up in the next post where we will discuss perches and grating on the bottom of the cage.

Till next time Adieu