New gym, but food bowl placement question

[tfw]

I'm working on a new gym for Kass. It will be a fully suspended one after I saw one in my favorite bird store.

Her food and water bowls will be right in the middle to contain the mess there and now all over the floor with her food flinging ways. Right now her food bowls are lower -- the rims are at her feet level, but it dips down (see pics -- her gym is due for a wipe down, so excuse the mess)

2020-04-11_12-16-28

So when I make the new one, the set up will be similar, but I can raise or lower the bowls as needed. She never seems to have issues with it now. And previously I had it too high and she had to climb up on the bowl to reach the food. Is there an ideal bowl height? Like some dogs or cats need their bowls raised so they do not throw up. Is there a rule of thumb for birds?

 

[SailBoat]

Neat project, one lucky Parrot.

Until very recently, we have for decades followed the same positioning guidelines, but have recently changed to setting the bowls a bit higher targeting just at or a bit below the top of the flight muscles on the chest. This is about, just below the center of the chest when perched.

Our Amazon seems to prefer it over bending over with his tail high in the air. Not sure if it is a modesty thing or just simpler...

Just my two cents.

 

[tfw]

Thanks! That's what I wanted to know. It's tricky because I have removable metal bowls that go in the PVC outer bowl. The first gym I made for her the bowls were set a little higher, at chest height like you described. But I felt like to get to the bottom of the bowl she had to climb on the bowl to get to it. I'll have to play around with it and find the sweet spot. I may have to ditch the metal bowl and just let her eat directly off the PVC cup that holds the bowl so it's not as deep.

 

[SailBoat]

Our portable perches have a like arrangement, but in addition to the top perch, they have a lower perch, kind of like a step down. He commonly perches on the lower one to eat was the Aaa Haa moment for us.

We use the same combination of stainless steel bowl in the PVC outer bowl and really love it as we can have a fresh bowl ready to switch out.

It's the stepped perch configuration that makes it work for us.

 

[bill_e]

Nike has bowls set at all different heights and seems to eat from each the same and often jumping up onto a bowl to dig through the food for that special piece.

Having said that, Nike for the last 6 months has been tossing away any bowl that is not securely fixed to her perch....no matter what it contains. She seems to instinctively know immediately that a bowl is ripe for tossing and just picks it up and flings it without looking at the contents....weird.

Edit, I've had to bent the metal rings that hold the bowls so that they have a strong purchase on the bowl or it and it's contents are on the floor.

 

[tfw]

Having said that, Nike for the last 6 months has been tossing away any bowl that is not securely fixed to her perch....no matter what it contains. She seems to instinctively know immediately that a bowl is ripe for tossing and just picks it up and flings it without looking at the contents....weird.

Edit, I've had to bent the metal rings that hold the bowls so that they have a strong purchase on the bowl or it and it's contents are on the floor.

HAHAHA Kass started PUSHING her food cups forward! I attached them via a type of PVC connector that just sits on the pipe rather than a real connector. And over time it's gotten easier for her to tip the whole thing over. Yes. messy.

For the PVC cups, we drilled a hole in the middle and put in a very very powerful magnet that has a hole in the middle and we've screwed it into the cup with a stainless steel screw. We stopped using that for the water bowl because even if there was a stainless steel bowl on top, there is a bit of water spillage and the magnet sometimes gets wet and rusty. so we just use the PVC without a hole or magnet for the water. The food bowls still use the magnet. She cannot remove it at all. So instead she tips the whole cup over LOL