Do I need the floor rack in the cage?

My budgie, Harry, has never ventured to the cage bottom. He is always on a perch. Today I cleaned his cage and 1/2 the poop was on the floor rack and the rest on the paper liner in the bottom drawer. It would be lot easier to clean the cage with just replacing the paper and not have to scrub the rack. I don't see any reason to have the rack seeing how he never goes to the bottom.

Your thoughts on this matter?

Leave it in (just in case he ventures down there...if he thinks he can pick things up he might-- they know they can't easily get stuff through the grate).
You don't want him retrieving pooped on fruit etc...or nesting in the paper that he would be able to reach.

I'd leave it in, it sure as anything he will try and escape, or get caught. It's a pain to clean I agree. And my budgies constantly loose those little fluff feathers.

Just chuck it (I despise grates anyway ) the whole "my bird may get poop on something" is almost never a problem and easily fixed.


My birds never go for anything (esp food) with feces on it with their beak, though they have no problem walking right in it when there is some on a perch etc..


Most birds will avoid the grate and not go to the bottom of the cage, there may be a chance that if he can sit solidly on the bottom (like in the wild) he will go there and have fun. (Of he may never go there in his life ...birds...)

Budgies, are big ground feeders by nature. So unlike many other parrots they are more likely to spend time on the floor if the cage. In my cages there is a gap if you remove the grate, that is big enough for a budgie to escape or get stuck. If your cage doesn't have a gap, or you can safely close that gap off. Then you can try grate free. Say hi to Harry for me!!

ChristaNL said:

Just chuck it (I despise grates anyway ) the whole "my bird may get poop on something" is almost never a problem and easily fixed.


My birds never go for anything (esp food) with feces on it with their beak, though they have no problem walking right in it when there is some on a perch etc..


Most birds will avoid the grate and not go to the bottom of the cage, there may be a chance that if he can sit solidly on the bottom (like in the wild) he will go there and have fun. (Of he may never go there in his life ...birds...)

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I have to disagree with most birds avoiding poop-- my cockatoo will occasionally pick up a small bit of dried poop and carry it (sometimes to clean off her cage--even though it's pretty dang clean already...other times, possibly for attention...)---She also enjoys messing with things under the grate when she can reach them. She is pretty stable, medically and mentally (as cockatoos go...). I have seen lots of birds pick poop up and toss it out of their areas...and they will stomp all over it.

Without a grate, I have no doubt she would go down there and shred/dig/explore/nest etc (when bored). Poop concerns aside, you don't want them eating fruit/veg that have fallen and sat out for hours. I give my "too" fruit sometimes and then I take it out when it has sat for too long. Without the grate, she could just go pick up those old/nasty pieces later in the day. I still clean them out each day, but you get my point....9 hour old mashed banana on a potentially bacteria-laden cage floor might look safe to a bird, but that doesn't mean it is.

Also, just because a poop-avoiding bird thinks a paper-towel liner is poop-free and therefore "shred-worthy", doesn't mean that it is always going to be the case (given the fact that the liquid portion of poop can spread out on paper towel liners etc). They may still shred and contact dirty paper towels etc with much greater ease than they would if a grate were in place. Plus, bacteria is going to grow more easily in moist paper than on a metal bar. The surface area of an open cage bottom allows for full-foot-to-poop-contact (LOL), as opposed to the bars of a grate.

A bird that walks through poop may then touch something food-related with that same claw and ingest bacteria, or accidentally drag their tail through poop while climbing around on the bottom.

Just wipe/spray the grate each morning and evening with an avian safe disinfectant like f10 SC ....Then it doesn't get super caked on.


I have recently removed paper-towels from under my grate altogether, as Noodles was fishing them out and making confetti from them.
She also is being treated for a mild bacterial infection (discovered in a mouth swab) that my vet said likely came from shredding the corners of paper towels on the cage floor. She didn't shred the visibly poopy parts, but she got close enough...That's probably why I felt the need to write a novel LOL.

I remove the grates. The issues raised are valid but a bit overblown. MANY people remove the grates and you never hear any issues. If you don’t like it, don’t hesitate to remove it if you like.

chris-md said:

I remove the grates. The issues raised are valid but a bit overblown. MANY people remove the grates and you never hear any issues. If you don’t like it, don’t hesitate to remove it if you like.

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This is probably true as well. Ultimately, it will be a personal call, but I wouldn't throw out the grate because you may need it one day if your bird takes a new interest in shredding etc. My personal experience supports the use of grates, but obviously that is not the case for everyone here. If you don't want it and your bird can't escape, you can always store it away in a back room or closet (just in case).

On the personal experiences front, I left the grate out by accident after cleaning. Neptune the next day was playing in poop, making poop castles. Walked through morning big poop and smeared everywhere! But budgies have those dry poops, not nearly as messy.

In my cage I keep the grates in because there's a slight drop where there is a space that birds could possibly get out of the cage and slide out their own tray and escape so I kep it in for their safety.

It is annoying to keep clean, but probably better in the long-run. Try removing it and observing what changes transpire for a few hours.

I have a Prevue cage with the plastic base. My grate does not slide out like the floor drawer. It lies on a lip in the plastic cage base. You have to disconnect the base from the cage and lift the whole cage off the base to pull out the grate. Even more of a pain. Bad design. The grate has been out for a day now and Harry hasn't ventured down to poopville yet. We'll see how it goes. Thanks for your input.