How often do you disinfect your cages?

[ravvlet]

Hey y’all!

As I mentioned in another thread, Kirby’s bloodwork came back awesome, but his fecal showed yet another overgrowth of e-coli! UGH! I find this personally quite frustrating - e-coli overgrowth is something that, from what I understand, has two components:

• A lack of healthy gut biome (his is pretty terrible, but was better than last time they did a fecal, and he is now on forever-probiotics since it keeps happening)
• Insufficient hygiene practices - anything that can cause food to contact their feces

To the first point, we are giving him probiotics. Apparently Benebac (sorry to everyone I’ve been recommending it to!) has discontinued their bird & reptile specific product, so his avian vet has prescribed a probiotic for cats/dogs that is okay for parrots. It’s EXPENSIVE, so I certainly hope it works. He gets 1/4 a tablet (they’re plastic tabs with powder in them) every day over his pellets.

To the second point… I honestly am frustrated, because I had thought we went above and beyond for cage cleaning, so I’m checking in with you guys to get opinions on how I can improve this. Currently, I wipe his cage & playstands down every night with water-only wet wipes on any area with visible fecal matter. I change his cage papers daily and his larger (and less soiled) playstand papers every other day. Once a month, I take his cage outside and hose it down, wipe off any areas I see lingering stuff (like missed bell pepper skin, or feathers or dust) and then spray the whole thing down with F10. I let that sit for a few minutes and then rinse and dry with a towel, and let air dry for a bit before bringing back inside. I wash all his perches and the toys that will fit in the dishwasher with no detergent & a heated dry cycle.

Is once a month insufficent for disinfecting? It’s a whole production because I do his playstands & cage, including changing the vet wrap on his playstand perches. It usually takes about two hours, so I have to kind of plan around it. I do it outside because the F10 has a slight odor and it’s likely not good to have it in an enclosed space with him, and it is significantly easier to clean in the yard where I’ve got space to work. If I need to do it more often though, I will figure something out. I spoke to the vet tech about it (didn’t get to talk to his vet, but I might reach out to her via email) and they felt we were doing a good amount of cleaning as-is - perhaps the addition of probiotics will prevent future issues?

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Hey y’all!

As I mentioned in another thread, Kirby’s bloodwork came back awesome, but his fecal showed yet another overgrowth of e-coli! UGH! I find this personally quite frustrating - e-coli overgrowth is something that, from what I understand, has two components:

• A lack of healthy gut biome (his is pretty terrible, but was better than last time they did a fecal, and he is now on forever-probiotics since it keeps happening)
• Insufficient hygiene practices - anything that can cause food to contact their feces

To the first point, we are giving him probiotics. Apparently Benebac (sorry to everyone I’ve been recommending it to!) has discontinued their bird & reptile specific product, so his avian vet has prescribed a probiotic for cats/dogs that is okay for parrots. It’s EXPENSIVE, so I certainly hope it works. He gets 1/4 a tablet (they’re plastic tabs with powder in them) every day over his pellets.

To the second point… I honestly am frustrated, because I had thought we went above and beyond for cage cleaning, so I’m checking in with you guys to get opinions on how I can improve this. Currently, I wipe his cage & playstands down every night with water-only wet wipes on any area with visible fecal matter. I change his cage papers daily and his larger (and less soiled) playstand papers every other day. Once a month, I take his cage outside and hose it down, wipe off any areas I see lingering stuff (like missed bell pepper skin, or feathers or dust) and then spray the whole thing down with F10. I let that sit for a few minutes and then rinse and dry with a towel, and let air dry for a bit before bringing back inside. I wash all his perches and the toys that will fit in the dishwasher with no detergent & a heated dry cycle.

Is once a month insufficent for disinfecting? It’s a whole production because I do his playstands & cage, including changing the vet wrap on his playstand perches. It usually takes about two hours, so I have to kind of plan around it. I do it outside because the F10 has a slight odor and it’s likely not good to have it in an enclosed space with him, and it is significantly easier to clean in the yard where I’ve got space to work. If I need to do it more often though, I will figure something out. I spoke to the vet tech about it (didn’t get to talk to his vet, but I might reach out to her via email) and they felt we were doing a good amount of cleaning as-is - perhaps the addition of probiotics will prevent future issues?

It seems like a very good cleaning schedule to me- way more than most people do. I like to use vinegar and water to clean cages with because it's antibacterial without being toxic.
Does Kirby have a current digestive health issue caused by overgrown E coli? Any symptoms?
Do you have other birds that Kirby comes in direct or indirect contact with? If so, have they all been cultured for E coli, too? Do they have the same overgrowth problem? I'm just wondering if the source of the excess E coli is other birds you have rather than cage, toys, etc.
At risk of sounding stupid, what is F10?

 

[ravvlet]

It seems like a very good cleaning schedule to me- way more than most people do. I like to use vinegar and water to clean cages with because it's antibacterial without being toxic.
Does Kirby have a current digestive health issue caused by overgrown E coli? Any symptoms?
Do you have other birds that Kirby comes in direct or indirect contact with? If so, have they all been cultured for E coli, too? Do they have the same overgrowth problem? I'm just wondering if the source of the excess E coli is other birds you have rather than cage, toys, etc.
At risk of sounding stupid, what is F10?

Hey, thanks! Yeah, I ran out of vinegar - good reminder to add it to my grocery list though!

He does not have any symptoms - they picked up on the overgrowth during a routine fecal as part of his yearly exam and he just finished a two week run of antibiotics.

Our other parrot is not in the same room as him and they do not have any contact as they don’t get along. However, her last yearly everything came back normal, so while it could be her I assume it’s unlikely, but it’s a good question!

He also does not have any contact with our other pets.

F10 is a veterinary grade disinfectant product. https://purecleanbio.com/collections/disinfectants I found out about it on here actually! I checked with my vet and she agreed it’s a great product. We have been using it for about a year now.

 

[ravvlet]

I wonder if it’s that I don’t replace his toys often enough - but they’re not being pooped on? Can e-coli from feces become airborne? I hate to throw out toys he hasn’t properly shredded up yet, and he takes his sweet time, haha.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

Hey, thanks! Yeah, I ran out of vinegar - good reminder to add it to my grocery list though!

He does not have any symptoms - they picked up on the overgrowth during a routine fecal as part of his yearly exam and he just finished a two week run of antibiotics.

Our other parrot is not in the same room as him and they do not have any contact as they don’t get along. However, her last yearly everything came back normal, so while it could be her I assume it’s unlikely, but it’s a good question!

He also does not have any contact with our other pets.

F10 is a veterinary grade disinfectant product. https://purecleanbio.com/collections/disinfectants I found out about it on here actually! I checked with my vet and she agreed it’s a great product. We have been using it for about a year now.

How many times has the vet tested Kirby's poop for E coli overgrowth and over what period of time? If Kirby is otherwise we'll, I'm wondering if the test results are reproducible or perhaps that particular poop sample came out like that but if another sample was tested a week later perhaps it would be normal. I also wonder if E coli "overgrowth" in a parrot's digestive system is clinically significant (is it making Kirby sick)?
I also wonder if non-toxic E coli (most strains are harmless in the gut) is on the veggies Kirby eats. Lots of veggies are irrigated with water that's contaminated by harmless E coli and it's impossible to wash all of it off. It would be interesting to have a culture done of Kirby's veggies.
As for airborne dried parrot poop spreading aerosolized E coli- Yikes! That's a much scarier thought (that I'm personally not going to worry about) because ANY E coli in the lungs is very bad! Just another reason to be paranoid and run an oversized HEPA filter where your birds hang out most!

 

[ravvlet]

How many times has the vet tested Kirby's poop for E coli overgrowth and over what period of time? If Kirby is otherwise we'll, I'm wondering if the test results are reproducible or perhaps that particular poop sample came out like that but if another sample was tested a week later perhaps it would be normal. I also wonder if E coli "overgrowth" in a parrot's digestive system is clinically significant (is it making Kirby sick)?
I also wonder if non-toxic E coli (most strains are harmless in the gut) is on the veggies Kirby eats. Lots of veggies are irrigated with water that's contaminated by harmless E coli and it's impossible to wash all of it off. It would be interesting to have a culture done of Kirby's veggies.
As for airborne dried parrot poop spreading aerosolized E coli- Yikes! That's a much scarier thought (that I'm personally not going to worry about) because ANY E coli in the lungs is very bad! Just another reason to be paranoid and run an oversized HEPA filter where your birds hang out most!

We have a HEPA right next to his cage - no worries! Just trying to puzzle this out. I’ve never asked what their criteria was for this - he has indeed had an overgrowth before, on last years fecal - he goes in for a re check in a couple weeks to make sure it’s normal!

 

[DonnaBudgie]

We have a HEPA right next to his cage - no worries! Just trying to puzzle this out. I’ve never asked what their criteria was for this - he has indeed had an overgrowth before, on last years fecal - he goes in for a re check in a couple weeks to make sure it’s normal!

I just googled "normal flora parrot digestive tract" and came across an excellent Avian Medicine article that discussed gram stain results of parrot poop samples Amazons, budgies, cockatoos, IRN, Greys, etc, normal and abnormal, and gram negative rods (including E coli) are not normally found in parrot poop in any significant quantity. This tells me that Kirby's gut flora is definitely off. I have a BS in medical lab science so I'm that kind of nerd. Knowing this now, I would talk to your vet again about trying to eradicate E Coli from Kirby's gut somehow because it's not normal and trying to determine why this is occurring. I would have a fecal gram stain performed on all your other birds too to establish whether this problem is unique to Kirby or if all your birds are affected. The primary source of the E coli may be you. Im sure you are a clan person but all humans have lots of non toxic E coli in their intestines and, quite frankly, healthy intact human skin can be colonized with it. However, it shouldn't grow well in a parrot's GI tract because the conditions are not normally conducive for it's growth. This is all very interesting.

 

[ravvlet]

I just googled "normal flora parrot digestive tract" and came across an excellent Avian Medicine article that discussed gram stain results of parrot poop samples Amazons, budgies, cockatoos, IRN, Greys, etc, normal and abnormal, and gram negative rods (including E coli) are not normally found in parrot poop in any significant quantity. This tells me that Kirby's gut flora is definitely off. I have a BS in medical lab science so I'm that kind of nerd. Knowing this now, I would talk to your vet again about trying to eradicate E Coli from Kirby's gut somehow because it's not normal and trying to determine why this is occurring. I would have a fecal gram stain performed on all your other birds too to establish whether this problem is unique to Kirby or if all your birds are affected. The primary source of the E coli may be you. Im sure you are a clan person but all humans have lots of non toxic E coli in their intestines and, quite frankly, healthy intact human skin can be colonized with it. However, it shouldn't grow well in a parrot's GI tract because the conditions are not normally conducive for it's growth. This is all very interesting.

This is interesting and also mildly horrifying. Our vet had indicated before that the source of his issues was his crappy gut biome, which has improved over time but isn’t where it ought to be, so we are hoping probiotics will help fix that.

As to the other stuff - huh. He really doesn’t mouth my hands or do anything else that I would think spread those kind of germs, and I don’t kiss him excessively or get saliva on him… so weird. He does get thawed frozen chop; I would think keeping it in the freezer would help with bacteria, but I don’t know at what temp e-coli survives.

Sam is going in for her yearly next month where she will also get a fecal, but again, they’re in separate spaces. I was told by other parrot owners of older birds that issues with gut flora and unusual bacterial overgrowth become more common with old age.

 

[DonnaBudgie]

This is interesting and also mildly horrifying. Our vet had indicated before that the source of his issues was his crappy gut biome, which has improved over time but isn’t where it ought to be, so we are hoping probiotics will help fix that.

As to the other stuff - huh. He really doesn’t mouth my hands or do anything else that I would think spread those kind of germs, and I don’t kiss him excessively or get saliva on him… so weird. He does get thawed frozen chop; I would think keeping it in the freezer would help with bacteria, but I don’t know at what temp e-coli survives.

Sam is going in for her yearly next month where she will also get a fecal, but again, they’re in separate spaces. I was told by other parrot owners of older birds that issues with gut flora and unusual bacterial overgrowth become more common with old age.

I read that E coli type bacteria don't grow well in a parrot GI tract so even if your body is the source, it should grow inside her unchecked. I hope the probiotics help balance her gut flora. Avoiding "giving" her more E coli doesn't make much sense because any she ingests should pass right through her. Very curious situation. But to get back to your cage cleaning routine- it's far better than most.