What's your cleaning process?

[hiriki]

I mostly spot-clean--the liners on top of the grates in my cages are changed daily or every other day (if I skip a day because it doesn't look dirty, I at least pick up and toss the discarded food). I also have liners below the grate in the tray, which I change... less often. There's almost never any poop in the tray liners, since the top liner catches the poop, so it's mostly just bits of toy or seed husks that fell off of the top liner when I was rolling it up to take it out. Water and veggie dishes are washed daily. Dry food dishes (seeds/pellets) aren't washed daily, I know this is maybe not best practice but I mostly only wash these if they get poop in them.

Now, where I know I have weaknesses is in the perch cleaning process... I mostly just strategically place perches so that they don't get poop on them at all, but if I misjudge and put a perch in the wrong place and it gets poop on it, it's usually a while before I notice and clean it, and at that point the perch needs a deep clean because the location has been bad the whole time and my bird has been pooping on it for a while. I have a few right now waiting to be deep cleaned because I'm not really sure how. And because I don't do daily poop scrubbing for perches, I mostly don't bother to inspect them closely at all, and I noticed recently that a lot of perches have some veggie crumbs on them. Oops! I also noticed that the bracket for my lovebird's veggie bowl has some veggies kind of wedged between the cage bars... ugh. I have a ton of extras so I just replaced the bracket with a new one and the dirty one will go through the dishwasher...

So here's my question I guess:

• What's your perch/cage bar cleaning process? How often do you do it and what do you use? Do you have a different process for different perch types? I do have rope perches, as well as natural sisal rope perch alternatives, and I have no idea how those would be cleaned.
• How often do you deep clean and what does your deep clean look like? Both for the cage bars themselves, and for the accessories (toys, etc). What cleaning products do you use, how do you dry everything...

For the perches, I'm thinking I'm overdue on a cage redesign anyway (I know some people do it weekly but it's just not really part of my routine atm) so I think I might just buy a bunch of clean new perches to add to the rotation and then put the current perches through deep clean so that I can use them again in the future.

 

[Mango the Sun Conure]

I mostly spot-clean--the liners on top of the grates in my cages are changed daily or every other day (if I skip a day because it doesn't look dirty, I at least pick up and toss the discarded food). I also have liners below the grate in the tray, which I change... less often. There's almost never any poop in the tray liners, since the top liner catches the poop, so it's mostly just bits of toy or seed husks that fell off of the top liner when I was rolling it up to take it out. Water and veggie dishes are washed daily. Dry food dishes (seeds/pellets) aren't washed daily, I know this is maybe not best practice but I mostly only wash these if they get poop in them.

Now, where I know I have weaknesses is in the perch cleaning process... I mostly just strategically place perches so that they don't get poop on them at all, but if I misjudge and put a perch in the wrong place and it gets poop on it, it's usually a while before I notice and clean it, and at that point the perch needs a deep clean because the location has been bad the whole time and my bird has been pooping on it for a while. I have a few right now waiting to be deep cleaned because I'm not really sure how. And because I don't do daily poop scrubbing for perches, I mostly don't bother to inspect them closely at all, and I noticed recently that a lot of perches have some veggie crumbs on them. Oops! I also noticed that the bracket for my lovebird's veggie bowl has some veggies kind of wedged between the cage bars... ugh. I have a ton of extras so I just replaced the bracket with a new one and the dirty one will go through the dishwasher...

So here's my question I guess:

• What's your perch/cage bar cleaning process? How often do you do it and what do you use? Do you have a different process for different perch types? I do have rope perches, as well as natural sisal rope perch alternatives, and I have no idea how those would be cleaned.
• How often do you deep clean and what does your deep clean look like? Both for the cage bars themselves, and for the accessories (toys, etc). What cleaning products do you use, how do you dry everything...

For the perches, I'm thinking I'm overdue on a cage redesign anyway (I know some people do it weekly but it's just not really part of my routine atm) so I think I might just buy a bunch of clean new perches to add to the rotation and then put the current perches through deep clean so that I can use them again in the future.

I spot clean Mangos cage once in the morning and once in the afternoon. I usually deep clean his cage every Saturday morning. When I deep clean his cage I take everything out (bowls, toys, perches, ladder, etc) I break down his cage and take it outside. I spray his cage down with water. I then go over and scrub it down. For his wooden and branch perches I usually use a mixture of diluted vinegar and baking soda. Some of his perches and branches get stained with his food or poop so I use a little of “poop off” it’s a spray I got from the bird store. For his toys I hand wash them and scrub them down with warm water. I let everything air dry in the sun (hence I do it in the morning) so it has most of the day to dry. Every time I clean his cage I try to switch his toys and branches around. He loves exploring his cage after I clean it. I personally don’t have a rope perch or toys just because I’m afraid of him shredding it and I don’t notice.
I think it’s a good idea to buy some extra perches/branches and rotate them each time you clean their cage. If you buy anything to clean their cage look at the ingredients and make sure there are no fragrance, harsh chemicals or harmful ingredients. “Pet friendly” cleaners usually do not apply to birds! Hope this helped a little.

 

[hiriki]

Woof! That's amazing!! Your birdie lives in sparkling cleanliness.

I have two flight cages in what I call my "bird corner"... two of these: https://www.aecageco.com/Products/6421-Platinum-Double-Flight-Bird-Cage-Divider.html

I love these cages more or less, for the price they're pretty nice and quite roomy... but the idea of breaking them down once a week kind of makes me feel faint. Lol. When I deep clean the cages, I more or less just let the birds out and then contort myself to scrub the hard to reach parts without breaking it down. I'm sure I don't get them fully clean that way, but... one of these cages is over 100lbs and I would have to haul them up a flight of stairs to get outside...

That said, I'll make note of your cleaning solution--diluted vinegar and baking soda. Last time I did a soak/deep clean of the perches, I think I used F10, but I was really worried about not rinsing it off totally because I wasn't really convinced it was safe. Vinegar and baking soda seems much safer. For spot cleaning I do have poop off, that stuff is miraculous.

Thanks for your response!! I know I won't be able to pluck up the motivation to break down the cages once a week but I can probably start cleaning everything else with the vinegar/baking soda solution once a week. That's a nice bite-sized chore to add to my routine.