Bird Care Guide

Written and reviewed by Hugo Mellado · Last updated August 2026

Companion birds are intelligent, long-lived and highly sensitive to their environment. A budgie may live eight to fifteen years, a cockatiel fifteen to twenty, an African grey longer than a dog and a cat combined. They also hide illness until it is advanced, so good husbandry is not a nicety — it is the whole of preventive care.

Nutrition

An all-seed diet is the most common cause of avoidable illness in pet birds. Seed is high in fat and short on vitamin A, calcium and several amino acids, and a seed-only budgie or cockatiel frequently develops fatty liver disease and respiratory problems. A formulated pellet appropriate to the species should make up roughly 60 to 80 percent of the diet.

• Fresh vegetables daily: dark leafy greens, broccoli, carrot, sweet potato, squash, bell pepper.
• Fruit in smaller amounts — berries, melon, apple without seeds, papaya.
• A small measured portion of seed as a treat or training reward rather than a staple.
• Cuttlebone or a mineral block for calcium, especially for laying hens.
• Clean water changed at least once a day, and twice if the bird bathes in it or drops food in it.

Toxic and dangerous

• Avocado, chocolate, caffeine and alcohol.
• Onion, garlic, apple seeds and stone-fruit pits.
• Salty, sugary and fried human foods; anything containing xylitol.
• Overheated non-stick cookware, which releases fumes lethal to birds.
• Aerosols, scented candles, incense, air fresheners, cigarette smoke and strong cleaning products. Bird lungs are extraordinarily efficient and therefore extraordinarily vulnerable.

Change fresh food after a few hours — bacteria multiply quickly in a warm cage. Convert a seed addict to pellets gradually, mixing and adjusting proportions over weeks while monitoring weight, and ask your veterinarian to supervise the transition.

Habits & Behavior

Birds are flock animals. In the wild they spend the day near companions, foraging, preening and calling. In a house, you are the flock, which is why an ignored bird screams and a well-included bird chatters. Contact calls — a loud shout when you leave the room — are normal; answer them and the volume usually drops.

Learn the body language. Relaxed feathers, grinding the beak at bedtime and one foot tucked up are all signs of comfort. Pinned eyes with fanned tail can mean excitement or overstimulation. Fluffed and hunched for long periods, sitting low on the perch, or sleeping on two feet during the day suggests illness.

Feather destructive behaviour has many causes: boredom, low humidity, skin disease, hormonal frustration, poor diet or loneliness. It deserves a veterinary work-up rather than a spray bottle. So does chronic egg laying in single hens, which is often triggered by long daylight hours, rich food and a nest-shaped hiding place.

Birds need ten to twelve hours of uninterrupted dark sleep. A cage in a busy living room with the television on until midnight produces a cranky, hormonal, unwell bird.

Care & Grooming

Buy the widest cage you can, not the tallest — birds fly horizontally. Bar spacing must be narrow enough that a head cannot pass through. Place it against a wall rather than in the middle of a room, at roughly chest height, out of direct sun and away from drafts, and never in the kitchen.

• Perches: use several diameters and materials — natural branches, rope, a small cement perch for nail wear. Remove sandpaper covers, which abrade feet.
• Cleaning: change the paper lining daily, wash bowls daily, and scrub the cage and perches weekly.
• Bathing: offer a shallow dish or a fine mist several times a week. It supports feather condition and reduces dust.
• Nails and beak: nails may need occasional trimming; a beak that overgrows is usually a health sign and needs a vet, not a file.
• Moulting: expect increased sleep and irritability once or twice a year, and support it with good protein.
• Wings: if clipping is considered at all, it should be discussed with an avian veterinarian. Many owners now keep birds fully flighted in a bird-safe room.

Bird-safe means: windows covered or screened, ceiling fans off, toilet lids down, no open pots on the stove, and no other pets with hunting instincts unsupervised.

Games & Enrichment

A wild parrot spends much of the day looking for food. Replicating that is the core of enrichment. Wrap treats in paper, thread vegetables onto a skewer, hide pellets in a foraging wheel, or stuff a cardboard tube with shredded paper and a nut in the middle.

• Provide shreddable toys — palm leaf, plain cardboard, untreated softwood, paper — and expect them to be destroyed. That is the point.
• Rotate three sets of toys weekly so the cage feels new.
• Teach targeting, step-up, recall and simple tricks with positive reinforcement. Training is the best relationship-builder available.
• Play music or leave a radio on quietly for company, and talk to your bird while doing chores.
• Add a safe outdoor aviary or a secured window perch for natural light, which supports vitamin D3 synthesis.

Health & Veterinary Tips

See an avian veterinarian — not a general small-animal clinic — within a week of bringing a bird home, and then annually. A first visit should include a physical exam, weight, and a discussion of diet; testing for psittacosis and other infections is often advised, especially in a multi-bird household.

• Weigh weekly with a gram scale. Birds hide illness, but they cannot hide a downward weight trend.
• Quarantine new birds for at least 30 to 45 days away from existing birds, ideally in separate airspace.
• Watch droppings daily: consistent changes in colour, volume or water content are meaningful.
• Keep humidity reasonable, avoid airborne irritants, and never use a non-stick pan in the same house without ventilation.
• For hens, limit nesting sites and long light hours to reduce chronic laying and the risk of egg binding.

Emergency — go now

• Tail bobbing, open-mouth breathing, wheezing or clicking.
• A bird sitting on the cage floor, fluffed and unwilling to move.
• Bleeding, particularly from a broken blood feather, or any cat or dog bite — bite wounds need antibiotics urgently.
• A hen straining, wide-stanced and unable to pass an egg.
• Any exposure to overheated non-stick cookware fumes, smoke or aerosols.

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Next: read our bird articles, or explore the reptile care guide for another species where environment is everything.