Making sure that you provide the best possible "house" for your bird is a key element to having a healthy bird. When your bird is in its cage, it is inevitable that it will be on a perch! Thus, perches need to be made comfortable for your birdie whether it is a wooden dowel, acrylic, plastic, Eucalyptus, etc.

 

Making sure that your bird has perches that he can fit his foot comfortably on is a must! The bird's foot should not be stretched and it should not　be touching underneath of the perch. Make sure that your bird has different size perches. If he is always on dowels or on the same size perch, his feet will cramp into one position and arthritis or other diseases may occur. A perfectly round dowel is bad for your bird's feet. Make sure your perches vary in diameters and in hardness of the wood or material they are made out of. Parrots actually "rest their feet" by gripping perches of different diameters. The tree branches that they perch on in the wild are not all the same diameter. Even on one limb, there is a variance in diameter, some parts being thinner, others wider. Rarely are they the same size from one end of the limb to the other.

　

Just like our feet get tired during long shopping trips and feel better when we change shoes, our birds' feet feel rested by changing perches because the grip is different for different size perches. To help with this, you can look for "orthopaedic perches" that are made with various sizes on the same perch. Using different perches gives your bird the variety he would find in the wild.

Cleaning the perches is critical. There are many safe sprays to clean with including: Poop-off, Kennelsol, bleach water, Avimate, VirkonS or Chlorhexiderm (Nolvasson). A wooden perch is harder to clean than a plastic perch, but wooden perches also give the bird different diameters of perch to exercise their feet on.

　

BEFORE YOU PUT THE BRANCHES IN THE CAGE, MAKE SURE THAT THE TREE HAS NOT BEEN SPRAYED WITH INSECTICIDES OR PESTICIDES!

　

When you clean the branches. Make sure that they sit for 20-30 minutes in the mixture. When you are done soaking them, put them in the sun to dry this will kill any remaining bacteria.

　

In each cage, you should have at least one cement perch or shell perch. They are also called "Sandy perches" and they help keep their nails short. There are some concrete perches that are twisted.

The "twisted effect" helps make it so that they are "exercising their feet" by gripping different holds. They come in all different sizes and colours. They are rather expensive but they sure help the birds.

　

The birds instinctively go to the highest perch in the cage, so you may want to put your concrete perch highest so that your bird sits on it the most. I have also heard that if you put it in front of the food/water dish, they will have to stand on it.

Don't get me wrong, the bird will still need their nails clipped but if they have a concrete/cement/sandy perch, you won't have to do it as often.

They are extremely hard to clean and if you have one by food or veggie dish, they will get dirty quickly. In order to really work well, the bird's foot needs to reach at least 2/3 to 3/4 of the way around the perch, not touching front toes to back toes or you need to get a bigger perch. However, good the cement perch may work, you need to have other perches in the cage, too it would be like standing on sandpaper all day, and it would　start to hurt!

I do not recommend dowels, they do not exercise the feet enough due to their conformity in diameter and will likely cause arthritis. If doweling is used it is always best to ruff the surface up a little.

Sandpaper perch covers are not recommended. They are too rough and can cause wear on pads and open sores on the bottom of your bird's feet. The cement perches are not sandpaper covered.

　

Make sure that you place your bird’s perches at several different heights, like a tree. If they are scared, they will go to the highest perch like they would in the wild. Again, make sure that the diameters vary so that the bird can find the most comfortable on as his/her "roosting spot."

　

Make sure to clean and disinfect perches as needed. Allowing your birds to perch and play on dirty perches is bad because old fermented food can very, very, very, very easily have bad bacteria in it. Birds often "clean up after dinner" on their perches so their "eating spots" will need to be cleaned more often. You will probably want to place the most easily cleaned perches next to their food bowl. This may sound like "Common Sense," but here goes, placement of the perches can make a difference on how often they need to be cleaned. Put them so that they do not cross over or under other perches.

When you put perches in a cage, make sure that they are stable. Your bird needs to feel secure, not like the perch is suddenly going to slip out from under him, IT MAY!