Bird Cleanup & Odor Control

Cleaning your bird’s cage likely isn’t your favorite chore, but it’s incredibly important in order to keep your pet comfortable and healthy. A dirty bird cage can lead to unhealthy bacteria growth and could also put stress on your bird. Not to mention, an unclean cage is stinky.

Each day, change the liner in your bird’s cage. You’ll also want to regularly clean your bird’s food dish and water dish with a mild detergent and spot clean any messy areas of the cage. You can use bird cage cleaner or bird poop remover for spot cleaning.

On a weekly basis, clean the cage tray, perches and your bird’s toys. This is also a good opportunity to rotate in new toys to help keep your bird entertained. Finally, each month, clean the entire cage. Remove the tray, grate, dishes, perches and toys. If you have a small cage, it may be easiest to wash the enclosure in a bathtub. For larger enclosures, you may want to take it outside or out to your patio and use a hose to wash it. Follow this with a deep scrubbing using bird cage cleaner. See more bird health and wellness solutions at Petco.

Believe it or not, many cultures believe getting pooped on by a bird is actually good luck. However, cleaning bird poop off your clothes or hair is no fun. The reason it may seem like your bird is intent on doing their business on you isn’t because they don’t like you. Instead, many smaller birds simply have to go often. Parakeets, for example, tend to excrete every 15 minutes.

As a pet parent, you may come to recognize that bird poop usually doesn’t smell very strongly. This is because, unlike cats, dogs and other pets, most pet birds don’t eat meat. Additionally, they don’t have anal glands like cats and dogs. Finally, food does not ferment in the stomachs of birds as it does with other species. As a result, your pet’s waste doesn’t smell too bad. Of course, you still need to clean your pet’s waste using bird cleaning spray and bird poop cleaner to keep the enclosure sanity. If your bird’s enclosure does begin to stink, a bird odor eliminator product can help manage the smell.