Five life-saving products for cockatiel parents
4/12/2024
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
After a solid month with Rio and Cookie, I can tell you that they’re adorable but also messy. Thank goodness Galaxus provides solutions to these problems.
Grains, feathers and droppings everywhere? That’s part and parcel of being a cockatiel parent. And yet, humans can make their everyday lives easier by having the right tools for living with miniature parrots.
Wondering who Rio and Cookie are? Read all about my cockatiels here.
Handheld vacuum cleaner
Let’s start with my favourite topic: dirt. Cockatiels belong to the cockatoo family and therefore have powdery down. These white, very delicate feathers have tips that turn into dust. And it’s thanks to them that their plumage is water-repellent. But boy oh boy, the mess Rio and Cookie make when they clean themselves… Depending on the light, you can watch the birds shake a giant cloud of dust from their feathers. Not to mention regular other grime, of course.
Source: Anika Schulz
That’s why one of my first purchases was a handheld vacuum cleaner. Don’t worry, I don’t use it on Rio and Cookie. Instead, it’s great to give my furniture and the floor a quick clean.
Fellow editor Patrick recently wrote an article about which models are good and which aren’t.
Paper sheets
Let’s move on to the second dirty chapter: cockatiel droppings. There’s a large drawer at the bottom of the cage, which I fill twice a week with around 1.5 litres of fresh bird sand. The sand absorbs urine and faeces. However, my cage has a base area of 70 × 90 centimetres, so the drawer’s quite awkward to clean. The drawer won’t fit horizontally through my living room door, let alone in the shower. As a result, my first few cleaning sessions left me with more dirty sand on the carpet and in the cracks of my wooden floor than I would’ve liked.
So I did some research and came up with the idea of putting paper under the sand. That way I can roll the dirty sand up in it and then throw the «nappy» in the rubbish. Many cockatiel parents simply use newspaper for this, which I advise against, as the birds like to nibble on everything and printer’s ink isn’t exactly good for their health.
I therefore decided to use tissue paper; the type that’s used to transport dishes. The thin paper’s available in different sizes: two sheets fit perfectly in my sand drawer.
Source: Anika Schulz
Mobile perch
If you keep your cockatiels in an animal-friendly way, you’ll let them fly freely during the day. The only problem is that some cockatiels don’t want to go into their cage at night, but prefer to snooze on the curtain rail or on the shelf. While it’s fine to let your birds sleep there, cockatiels tend to have night terrors, meaning they get scared of something in the dark and then flutter about in a panic. And as the little parrots struggle to see in the dark, this can cause nasty injuries. That’s why I always put Rio and Cookie to «bed».
Neither of them fly onto my hand (yet), so I use a mobile perch. What I do is take the wooden perch, hold it out to Rio and Cookie and manoeuvre them back into the cage in the evening. This usually works quite well because they’re familiar with the perch and know what’s going to happen next.
Source: Anika Schulz
Cotton buds
Cotton buds? Yep, you read that right. Rio needed to see the vet the other day because the silly sausage rubbed something into his eye. A tiny, broken end of a feather poked him so badly that I was unable to remove it and needed to call the doc.
Rio’s little eye was inflamed and I had to apply an ointment to it for a few days. The problem is that he’s not tame and won’t let me touch his face. Kind of understandable, as it also happens to be sore. So I tried the following trick: I took a cotton bud and scratched his head very carefully (at a safe distance). Lo and behold, Rio enjoyed the massage. So I put some ointment on the cotton bud and managed to apply cream to his eye like that. Of course, the bud wasn’t sterile, but not much is when you’re dealing with animals.
To keep things fair in terms of my massage services, I also scratched Rio’s buddy Cookie with the cotton bud. And Cookie LOVES it! So much so that we now have a new bedtime ritual: Anika uses an (ointment-free) cotton bud to scratch Cookie’s feather bonnet extensively.
Pouring cans
Last but not least: sturdy storage containers. These come in handy since I buy food and bird sand in bulk. However, the XXL bags are unwieldy, so I always transfer some of them into storage containers for easy pouring. This saves me work and little accidents involving too much straw and not enough food when I fill the bowls every day.
Source: Anika Schulz
By the way, I keep all my cockatiel tools on the shelf under their cage. And it’s really starting to fill up. I think I’ve spent around a thousand euros on my two fluffy birds, including the cost of the cockatiels and vet fees.
Source: Anika Schulz
Header image: Anika Schulz
Anika Schulz
Teamleader Editorial
Anika.Schulz@galaxus.deAs a child, I was socialised with Mario Kart on SNES before ending up in journalism after graduating from high school. As a team leader at Galaxus, I'm responsible for news. I'm also a trekkie and an engineer.