my birds

[sspatula]

I have right now 8 budgies which I adopted from my local animal shelter. Need some clarification on a topic I usually clean the inside of their cages with a small vacuum never had a problem before they have never been frightened by this before, had an incident recently where one of my birds got scared for some unknown reason and flew in front of the nozzle an got caught no damage done but people are belittling me for this and like I said been doing this for years and this is the first time this has happened. I need some input on this.

 

[Danny1]

If it wasn't on purpose and the bird is fine then simply take precautions to insure it can't happen again. I feel like that convo can end there. Who are the people belittling you? If it is people online there is no pleasing them they wont stop until you give up your birds. Best advise is ignore them. Animal communities online are very hostile and understandably so since we are dealing with living creatures but unfortunately this usually scares people away and in turn those people don't get helpful advise which hurts the animals. I use an iRobot H1 the suction on this is very low and though I haven't tried it I'm confident that my sun conures can easily pull away from the suction. Obviously budgies are smaller but maybe look into a weaker vacuum. Or a better option would be to temporarily move the birds so you can clean and avoid any unnecessary stress if you believe it is causing any. Takes the owner to know their bird.

 

[hiriki]

Sorry you've been belittled. That sucks, sorry about that

That said I'm having trouble picturing why you would need to vacuum inside a cage? Don't feel bad about it, especially since your bird isnt injured, but I would say it's probably not worth the risk to clean that way. Do you use news print paper or newspaper to line your cages? If so you should be able to just pick up the paper carefully to collect the seeds and poop, no vacuum necessary. If you do continue vacuuming, then I would just not do it while the birds are inside of the cage.