Morning routine length?

[noodles123]

I am just curious:
About how long would you say it takes you do prep your bird for a typical week-day when you will be going to work (EXCLUDING interaction time)? What do you morning routines look like?

I feel like ours takes me quite a bit of time..even if I weren't multi-tasking...It isn't that complicated, but it feels like so much when sleep is precious:

1.A. Uncover bird and let her out
1.B. empty water dish and wash it- replace with purified water.
2. Re-fill humidifier with purified water (and wash some days--add 10 min) and clean up inevitable spill.
3. Microwave special part of bird's breakfast and measure/mix in probiotic.--I do make this ahead of time...
4. Clean cage grate with F10 and replace paper towels underneath.
5. Fill up dry seed/pellet dish (and wash every other day or so)
6. Give medicine
7. Spray bird with water, then empty spray bottle and prop up to dry
8. Chop up/wash fruit/veg for when I leave
9. Wash bird dish from breakfast
10. Put bird back in cage and add fruit/veg dish
11.Turn on radio, special lights, open blinds, shut doors and do goodbye routine.

Then there is the fact that I am trying to get ready at the same time.
Currently, my sink is overflowing...Just crazy because it seems simple, but the time just disappears.
This is me procrastinating because I should definitely NOT be posting on here at the moment LOL.
I was just curious to see what you guys do.

 

[Sandy19]

If it's not cold outside I put her out on the porch on her playstand which has the food and water bowls on it. I fill the water bowl and chop up whatever vegetables I happen to have. This morning was a brussel sprout, garbanzo beans and a dried chile pepper. Shes a small bird with no special diet so I can get her breakfast together in a few seconds. Then after she's done making a big mess with the vegetables I clean that up and replace with her pellets and some seed mix. Then I clean her cage and replace the water and pellets. Luckily I work from home so I dont have to rush to be anywhere at a certain time. I have to get my daughter ready for school and have the dog and the rabbit to tend to also, I would never make it out of the house on time.

 

[Squeekmouse]

I hear you loud and clear, some of the things you do in the morning I do ever evening after dinner, so I'll add that in too. Bottom line for me is I spend a heck of a lot of time every single day just taking care of my boys, not including all of the interactions and training, which is the fun part.

Morning Routine takes about 60-90 minutes:
1. Get the perch and scale set up to weigh both fids.
2. Prepare feeding room for Trigger's morning hand-feeding (fresh towel, paper towels, perch, cups.
3. Roll playgyms into the living room for eating breakfast on
4. Chop up some fruits/veggies, Prepare two food dishes and two bowls of fresh water for playgym's for breakfast.
5. Prepare hand-feeding formula for Trigger, place cup of formula in bowl of warm water to keep it on temperature. Take this and thermometer up to feeding area.
6. Uncover Trigger, coax him to come out and/or poop.
7. Weight Trigger and record number.
8. Bring Trigger to feeding area, feed him, then my hubby takes him to shower to clean him up.
9. While Trigger and hubby are showering, I clean formula from the walls and floor and perch and self and the fake plant he loves to land on and clean his face off on.
10. Take Trigger from Hubby so he can finish getting ready for work, dry off Trigger as best as I can. Bring him downstairs and put him on his playgym for breakfast.
11. Wake Yoda, let him poop, weight him and record number.
12. Fold and store covers, roll cages out of the living area for the day.
13. Replace water and pellets in cages.
14. Place Yoda on his breakfast and snarf down my own before the fids finish theirs. Try not to fall asleep if I get done first.
15. Hubby gets done and takes over birds while I go get ready for the day.
16. Say good-byes to birdies and put them in cages.
17. Replace/clean water for both humidifiers. Hubby goes to work, I go to the gym.

Evening Routine, after dinner: (This takes 45-60 minutes). Clean two cages, two playgyms, two perches, one tree stand, replace paper linings, clean/replace food and water dishes. Clean up any pooped on toys. Vacuum all living areas where birds have been.

Yup.... it's a lot to do every day. But I don't regret it for an instant. I love my boys!

 

[Laurasea]

I'm glad I'm stay at home, I do it all day long! Working parronts you have my respect!

 

[ChristaNL]

I am a slob- on the days I really have to run out of the house I just check the birds, waterlevels in the bottles and level of cleanliness in the open ones, add pellets, maybe chop up a piece of fruit and If I am leaving for a long time (5-6 hours) throw in some (ones I prepared earlier) ready made fouraging stuff and run off..
Cleaning etc. can wait till I get back.


ON every other day its poopcontroll, making chop, fixing the sprouts etc.etc. get the special porridge made and spooned into Sunny, get volenteers together for a showerparty, lots of cleaning (and making fouraging things for the days I have no time)
(yes I forgot about the weighing ... again!)

 

[SassiBird]

Oh, I'm the queen of sleeping in. So I clean and give fresh pellets at night. In the morning I just freshen the water, load up the foraging toys and I'm out the door. They do hang out with me in the bathroom while I get ready, but that is all I do for birdie chores. They get their fresh veggies at night while we have dinner.

 

[chris-md]

Ummmm...I’m with Christa on this. 95% of that is NOT on my daily routine. Daily cage cleanings woth F10? Wow...let’s call that dediCATION!

3 minutes tops. Clean water bowl, give food, turn on tv or radio, and out I go. I don’t pull him out in the morning given how late he stays up (usually between 11pm-midnight).

 

[ChristaNL]

(since 1 gallon of F10 is about 388 dollars here / 1 gallon is 3.78541 litres, and 1 litre of F10 costs about 90 euro/102.51 dollar excl. the costs of having it delivered here/ I do not know how you guys afford all that cleaning!)

 

[noodles123]

Wow-How is it so expensive there?

You don't use it at full strength- the bottle I buy is a concentrate that makes like 13 gallons...the bottle itself is 200 ML which is sold for $27.27 on Amazon. You only need to add 2ml to 17oz of water in order to achieve the 1:250 mix ratio ([FONT=&quot]200ml/2(based on 2ml per 17 oz)=100x17oz=1700 oz)[/FONT]. [FONT=&quot]That means you can make 1700 ounces (or 13.2 gallons) [/FONT][FONT=&quot]of cleaning solution per 200 ml bottle of concentrate(17 oz water +2 ml solution is what I am using). A 1 GALLON REFILL OF Windex is almost $14.00....soooo for the same price (roughly $28.00) you can get 2 gallons of Windex (not safe), or 13.2 gallons of bird-safe f10sc! If you increase dilution to 1:500 (still viable) then that number stretches even further! [/FONT]

Also- I just do the grate because she goes down and walks all over it (tries to pull stuff up from the bottom to eat --fallen fruit etc)--ever since she started pulling up paper towels to shred, I have had to replace 2x daily (or she poops on them and then comes in contact with that when shredding or retrieving food).

 

[Sandy19]

I've been lining paper towels on top of the grate since Peanut was a baby. She doesn't shred them up. In fact if I run out of paper towels she cocks her head and looks at the grate like "how am I supposed to walk on this". She doesn't like it when her paper towels aren't there.

I'm actually glad I did it that way and got her used to it because it makes clean up so much easier. She does her morning poop and all I have to do is throw out the paper towels and replace them. Then she's out of the cage most of the day until bedtime.

 

[Siobhan]

I do cleaning and such after work. I am NOT a morning person. I uncover and say good morning and make sure food and water are okay -- they have pellets 24/7 -- and then I have to drink coffee and stare at the weather channel for a while before I can function. LOL I give morning kisses but that's about it.

 

[kozykitty]

Can you make chop for several days so you don't have to do it every day? I know it depends on what you feed. I find I can chop veggies for 3 or 4 days at a time and add fresh fruits daily. It does save a little time.

 

[chris-md]

Kozykitty, yes you absolutely can make and freeze chop. But That’s a whole topic unto itself and I strongly recommend starting a separate thread to discuss

 

[itzjbean]

I have multiple pets so most mornings look like this...

- Get up at 6, let dog out
-Feed dog breakfast, feed cats breakfast and change water
-Uncover birds, turn on their light
-Clean out water bowls and refill food bowls for the day

I'll generally have Ember out when I apply my makeup and can keep an eye on him in the living room. But then he goes back into the cage at least until lunch. I'm out the door most days by 7:30am. Cleaning gets done on the weekends.

 

[kozykitty]

Chris-md. I should've addressed that to Noodles. LOL. I make several days worth of chop at a time which saves morning time.

I also have my bird and turtle lights on digital timers that can be set for different times every day. I keep them on the same time each because that works for me. Gloria's cage is covered over night. Her light goes off an hour or so before she goes to bed at night.