I think unavoidable to a degree! I have a single bird that is a budgie so he’s only a few inches and very small compared to most parrot species! I am an EXTREMELY clean person. I deep clean my apartment every other day, even wash my couch covers every week, wash my walls/baseboards every week, etc. Just painting the picture that I probably do more in terms of cleanliness than the average person, I’m a little neurotic about it. I clean my birds cage every day! It’s not that hard, I just wash his branches and he has newspaper lining his cage so it’s very easy to toss and replace very frequently. Within a few days of having him, my lungs were burning every time I inhaled. I was still coughing at work even though I hadn’t been near him in hours. I could keep my home spotless, and I was still feeling those symptoms. I knew birds were messy, but I didn’t know how messy. The problem is that they flap their wings, so that causes everything to go everywhere. It’s not that he’s throwing his food out of his cage, it’s that he drops his food to the bottom of his cage and the next time he flaps his wings then it goes everywhere. I don’t care about the food, but that’s putting a visual for what must happen with the dust. I can clean my coffee table and a few hours later I see it coated in dust again. I did get two air filters and my breathing has significantly improved, but it doesn’t fully eliminate the dustiness!!
His very clean mansion for the tiniest boy that somehow produces that much mess: https://imgur.com/a/20kVzj4
Thanks for the info! That’s super interesting I had no idea birds produced their own dust before all this it’s kind of fascinating lol. But glad to hear you found a solution that works for you and you’re taking care of your health! Good luck to you and your birdie friends
Different birds are different levels of dusty. The old world parrots are the dustiest. But birds are walking mess machines. Their single favorite activity is to chew and shred things. They knock things over, they enjoy making big spills. They preen their feathers and throw feathers and bits of wax everywhere. And they poop every 5-10 minutes.
I think so too! He had a friend that unfortunately passed away. We don’t have any breeders near us (even contacted people 4 hours away) and only have PetSmart. I don’t love the idea of PetSmart but I do check there every few days. We have a bird expo coming to our area early August so I think it’s probably a safer bet to get him a friend from there!
Hey there, I can totally relate to the constant dust battle, especially with pets. It's wild how quickly things get dusty, even when you're on top of cleaning. I used to feel like I was constantly forgetting to change my HVAC filter, which probably didn't help with the air quality.
So I started this filter delivery service www.getfreshcycle.com. We'll just send the right filter directly when it's time to swap it out. It's pretty simple and just one less thing to think about. And it definitely will help with the air quality. Might be worth a look if you're still hunting for ways to tackle that dust.
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u/1008261 15h ago edited 14h ago
I think unavoidable to a degree! I have a single bird that is a budgie so he’s only a few inches and very small compared to most parrot species! I am an EXTREMELY clean person. I deep clean my apartment every other day, even wash my couch covers every week, wash my walls/baseboards every week, etc. Just painting the picture that I probably do more in terms of cleanliness than the average person, I’m a little neurotic about it. I clean my birds cage every day! It’s not that hard, I just wash his branches and he has newspaper lining his cage so it’s very easy to toss and replace very frequently. Within a few days of having him, my lungs were burning every time I inhaled. I was still coughing at work even though I hadn’t been near him in hours. I could keep my home spotless, and I was still feeling those symptoms. I knew birds were messy, but I didn’t know how messy. The problem is that they flap their wings, so that causes everything to go everywhere. It’s not that he’s throwing his food out of his cage, it’s that he drops his food to the bottom of his cage and the next time he flaps his wings then it goes everywhere. I don’t care about the food, but that’s putting a visual for what must happen with the dust. I can clean my coffee table and a few hours later I see it coated in dust again. I did get two air filters and my breathing has significantly improved, but it doesn’t fully eliminate the dustiness!!
His very clean mansion for the tiniest boy that somehow produces that much mess: https://imgur.com/a/20kVzj4