Floor dangers?

Boki

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Location
HI
Parrots
Marcy - double yellow Amazon
Mac - blue front Amazon
Loki - rosefront conure
Brand new conure gets out of cage on her own and goes exploring. She starts to put her beak on an electrical cord for a lamp. Is this something I should worry about?

What are things I should do to make a room safe for a clipped 6 month old conure?
 
Brand new conure gets out of cage on her own and goes exploring. She starts to put her beak on an electrical cord for a lamp. Is this something I should worry about?


This is critical danger. The electricity may easily kill her, and set your house on fire. Unattended birds and loose electrical cables is like a child with matches. You're asking for trouble.
 
Household bird hazards are numerous for both flighted and flightless birds.
Mine is flightless so I try to minimize hazards I perceive and keep an eye on him.

Yes, as Aratingettar stated electrical cords are a hazard with a chewing bird.
These cable covers can lower, but not eliminate, the danger.
https://www.amazon.com/Hosa-WHD-410...ocphy=9031087&hvtargid=pla-493162448596&psc=1

Some houseplants are poisonous.
Birds drown in a bucket of water, something I often have around since I have aquariums.
Keep your toilet covered.

Others may chime in listing other specific hazards, but supervision is key.
It's like having a small child who just learned to crawl, then to walk; exploring and getting into trouble is irresistible to them.

BTW, the cage you described is a deathtrap.
Have you have you gotten another cage with closer bar-spacing that can't hang your bird?
Or did you "solve the problem" as you wrote, by installing screening or mesh that contains poisonous metals?

If not, I'm afraid your bird is safer walking around your home than it is in its cage. :(
 
My bird will never be unsupervised out of its cage.

Kirk, new cage arrives Monday. That was the best I can do. I am not going to get into a debate about the wiring for many reasons. But I do want to point out that the stuff is made to contain birds, Peace out.
 
Thank you Boki.
I'm glad your bird's getting a safer cage. :)
 
ABSOLUTELY, you should worry. Birds are killed by electrocution all of the time, and a lot of the plastics coating wires are even toxic. Do not let him/her near them.

Birds explore the worlds with their mouths and are more easily poisoned than toddlers due to their beak strength/grinding ability + other sensitivities absent in humans. When chewed, anything wood (furniture etc) can contain toxic stains etc--some untreated wood is even toxic to birds, anything metal--unless 100% stainless (metal poisoning is common in birds--money is another hazard, as is jewelry), your shoes can track in dirt/poop etc, things like glitter etc on the carpet, crumbs/particles from things like Styrofoam etc which might be overlooked by you, lead paint (and really, any paint), pens/markers, marbles (depending on bird size), electronics, batteries, many houseplants, things like plastic bags that could be choking hazards, damp-rid containers (desiccants) ,mouse traps, aunt/roach baits, chemical insect killers along walls, bottles of chemicals for cleaning etc etc...the list goes on.
Also, don't know what you are talking about when you say the "debate about wiring"...There is no such thing as a bird safely chewing on electrical wiring....


For some reason though, I feel like maybe you meant that your bird is currently in a make-shift cage made of chicken wire or something (? I don't know if that is what you meant) but, there is a BIG difference between wiring safe for a chicken, or even a pigeon and a parrot.
In part, because parrots have much longer life expectancy and also because any metal containing lead, copper, zinc etc (or alloys containing these, like brass, bronze, pewter etc) can cause serious metal poisoning in parrots. My vet had a client who allowed his bird chew on toothbrushes and apparently, there were tiny metal clamps inside to hold the bristles...The bird didn't eat them, but played with them and was poisoned critically by copper (of all the strange metals to put in a toothbrush!) Furthermore, a parrot can easily chew through wires that would hold other bird varieties.
 
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... Also, don't know what you are talking about when you say the "debate about wiring"...There is no such thing as a bird chewing on electrical wiring ...

I think the 'debate about wiring' Boki refers to is not about electrical wiring.
Rather it must be about the wires, or bars, of bird cages.

In the 4th post of Boki's first thread ... http://www.parrotforums.com/conures/79024-breeder-s-conflicting-advice.html ... Boki wrote, "she has been trying to slide through the cage bars but gets stuck thankfully.
Thankfully she is just a tad too big for the bar spacing.
"

Several members responded, warning that cage bars must be spaced close enough to prevent the bird from inserting its head between bars, which can cause injury or death from hanging or asphyxiation.

Anyway, I'm glad Boki has reported another cage is arriving soon.
Keep up the good work, Boki. :35:
 
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It's spine-chilling when a bird gets out without your knowledge, isn't it? I'm glad you're taking steps to try and bird-proof your house. I am too, but it's time-consuming and no one ever gets it completely right. There's always something you didn't count on. For example, my gas-lift chair had been misbehaving and the casters jamming up. I found out why when my corella *picked up a ball-bearing* in her bill and played with it for a few seconds before I managed to get it away from her. My heart stopped!!! When I looked (with my faulty sixty-three-year-old eyes behind their soon-to-be-replaced respectacles), I found there were dozens of ball-bearings in the carpet! Thankfully, Rosetta had only been on the carpet that once, so I know for certain she had only had access to that one ball-bearing. Otherwise, it would've been off to the vet for an x-ray.

Other things I can add to the list:
Ceiling fans can slice, chop or julienne your bird. Make sure you turn them off before letting birdie out of his cage.

Right now in the Australian summer we have a massive insect problem (flies and mosquitoes, but also roaches in dizzying numbers). Be careful of insect sprays and *never* use them in the same room as your bird. Preferably, don't use them at all and stick to traps to reduce insect numbers.

Likewise, other aerols like hairspray, cooking spray, aerosol glues, perfumes etc etc etc. Anything that can mist or outgas fumes is potentially lethal to your bird.

Network cables! Everyone knows electrical cables are dangerous because they carry electricity. However, my Beaks cost us dearly when they attacked the neatly-hidden network cables nestling in the dado of our old house. Poor hubby had to completely dismantle the network and re-wire it. Thanks, Beakies. :( Oh, and they killed my sexy classical-music doorbell on the same occasion, chomping through the speaker wire and rendering it incapable of playing Bach at me when the postman rang. :(

Shoelaces! If you treasure your wonderful trainers, keep them out of birdie's range. He will certainly chew off the aglets (little metal ends of the shoelaces) and leave you with a fuzzy mess. AND the metal in the aglets is probably toxic, so...

Bookcases and tall shelves are a worry because some birds will retreat up there and laugh down at you as you plead with them to come down. We covered some cardboard boxes with tasteful paper and filled the spaces so Beakies couldn't get up there. It's worth filling the spaces above shelved books in the same way to prevent little beaks (peachfaces) from chewing the spines off of your good books. My 'Insects of Australia' has never been the same since the naughty Lovies got a taste for it. :(

Anything flimsy or unstable the bird could potentially land on - and fall from. I have a collection of Australian Girl dolls (LOL! They look exactly like 'Children of the Damned', all lined up and staring at you) which the birds have occasionally tried to land on. They know better now, but things like standard lamps or those tall CD racks could be really dangerous.

Other pets! We've all seen the cute photos of birds with lions and tigers and bears (oh my!) and cats and dogs. The fact is that it would only take an instant for the bird to either land on or lose its balance and grip hard on the dog or cat, giving it eight simultaneous needles into its skin. Any animal would react instinctively to that and it would only take another tiny instant for the dog or cat to have the bird's head off. I always make sure the dog and cats are entirely out of the room when the birds are out .

Windows and mirrors. Whenever a new bird comes home (not likely to happen again at our place), I always take him around the house, gently touching his bill to the mirrors and windows so he knows they are hard and not to be flown into. I do this every time birdie comes out until I'm convinced he's aware of the danger. The only bird who's ever flown into a window in my house was the little peachface who flew inside from who-knows-where and then tried to fly out again.

This thread could go on and on, but the best idea is to walk through the bird-accessible parts of your house and imagine an inquisitive, flying birdie having free rein there. Then, fix things so he can. ;)
 
My Umbrella cockatoo named Baby use to at times let herself out of her old Prevue cage. She would go as far as break a piece of wood off her toy shim it down and stick it in between the top flip type lock and then use another piece of wood and hit the button to open lock. First time I thought I left door open by mistake and then caught her once in the process of letting herself out and then she would a couple of times open my other umbrella cockatoo cage named Cooper and go in it. Thankfully she love the new King cage and Cooper with her now, so she don't try to escape at nights anymore.
 
Boki, it's not about "getting into a debate", there is no debate at all brother...There is absolutely NO type of wire-mesh, chicken-wire, or hardware-cloth that is safe for Parrots except for stainless steel...Poultry birds, game birds, and wild birds that are not Psitticines (parrots) will be poisoned by any other type of metal, and just by chewing on it once makes it possible...

There is no debate, and we're just trying to warn you because you have a brand new little baby Conure that we don't want to see die or end-up costing you thousands of dollars to have Chelation-Therapy done for months to get the metal out of her, it's a nightmare and they often die while going through it. And probably 90% of any of those fencing/mesh products that are "made for birds" are galvonized, and that's a problem Boki...So the point is if you see her chewing on that junk you put around her cage, you need to stop her immediately, and then watch her closely for the next week after you get her out of that cage for any signs of vomiting, disorientation, lack of appetite, etc.

I'm glad you ordered her a new cage, just keep a very close eye on her while she's inside the cage she has now, because in all seriousness, it only takes a little bit of chewing on it and she could be in trouble...And we're only concerned about your bird and you, so no need to get upset about it...
 
there are chemicals you can spray your electrical cords to dissuade any animal from chewing on them. They are a terribly bitter yet safe. When I had ferrets I bought some because I had one electrocute itself once, did ferret CPR successfully I suppose and yes it was a very nice vet bill after that. I forget the name but I'm sure you could find it on a google search.
 
there are chemicals you can spray your electrical cords to dissuade any animal from chewing on them. They are a terribly bitter yet safe. When I had ferrets I bought some because I had one electrocute itself once, did ferret CPR successfully I suppose and yes it was a very nice vet bill after that. I forget the name but I'm sure you could find it on a google search.


When looking for a solution to overpreening, I investigated these sprays, but I found that many--such as bitter apple spray (even the kind marketed towards birds)--contain alcohol (and reportedly, often lose efficacy once dry, according to reviews). Due to parrots weakened sense of taste, some of them actually like the flavor, or don't notice it at all. Plus, all it would take is one good chomp and that could happen before the flavor dissuades the bird.


This stuff is another option- DO NOT heat it to clean up ends, as recommended by some reviews. This would produce fumes. You still need to watch your bird closely- even with this sort of thing. Also, many adhesives (including tape) can be toxic to birds, so avoid those.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B071JH14WZ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09__o00_s00?ie=UTF8&th=1
 
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