Poopy Water!!

[hiriki]

The enemy that plagues all flock parronts... lmao.


My doves are the worst perpetrators, obviously they aren't parrots but damn it's like every time they want to poop, they want to do it over water. Why? Who knows!


This is a dual purpose thread. The first is to vent about poopy water!!!! The second is to just kind of discuss parrot chore habits--how do you stay on top of the chaos? I figure if we all share how we do things, we can be inspired by each other



I considered using one of the "water bottle" styles, with the vertical reservoir and just a small lip to drink from, but I hesitate to make any changes that would encourage laziness. I wash my water dishes every night, regardless of water bowl poop content, and it's important to me that I keep doing it. On the other hand... take today, for example. Literally minutes after I scrubbed the doves' water, one of them pooped in the bowl and I had to wash it a second time. If I had faith that I'd still clean every night, I do think a reservoir type water dish might prevent the doves from having no choice but to partake of poopy water...


Then again x2, I do like having somewhere--albeit small--for the birds to bathe if the mood arises.



Anyway, my bird regimen is nightly--it changed my life when I realized I could clean dishes and refill food at night instead of the morning. Mornings are hard!! I sift the dedicated pellet bowl to get crumbs out and dump the seed and pellet mix to refill, clean all water dishes and spot clean food dishes. I used to take my bird smoothie cubes out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge nightly so I could serve veggie smoothies in the morning, but with the holidays I've gotten out of the habit...


And of course, I change the poopy water every time it gets poopy.



That's all I do nightly. I did try changing newspaper nightly for a while, but it gets expensive and creates unmanageable amounts of trash to put out on trash night. So I've settled on every 3 days or so.

 

[EllenD]

I feel your pain...Some birds think that their water bowls are actually toilets. And if it's not poop, it's "pellet-soup"...

The one thing that does work is buying a water dish that has a "hood" or cover that snaps on/off, that way they can't poop in the water, they just end-up pooping on the hood...The only thing I don't like about those is that they are plastic, and I prefer using stainless-steel bowls...But I actually do have multiple plastic water dishes with hoods/covers in my walk-in aviary where my Budgies live, because they were just doing it purposely I think, and it did solve the problem...But no matter what you do, you still have to change their water out at least once a day (should do it twice a day, once in the morning and then once at dinner time/evening, only because of how quickly microbes grow in standing water, such as Bacteria and Fungi, they start growing in the water as soon as you set them down in their cages)...

***As far as your Doves go, I actually picked-up a great idea from the Avian Rescue I volunteer at...For any soft-bills that they take in, usually Doves and Pigeons, they use poultry-bird feeders for both their seed-mix and their water. They are the ones you can buy at any Tractor Supply that have the large, clear container that screws-into the round, colored plastic base that is a reservoir for the water/food to run into automatically. They initially started using these to make it easier for the Dove/Pigeons to eat and drink, because they can easily just poke their bills right down into the water/food in those types of containers, like a duck would...But they also prevent them from pooping in their water. The only way they could poop in the water in one of those would be if they were actually sitting on the top of the container, which they never do...So I bought one of these for my Ringneck Dove's water, and it works great. He's never pooped in it because he can't, and he had no problem at all drinking out of it right away...

 

[GaleriaGila]

You had me at "poopy water"!

Yes, it's just so wrong, on so many levels.

I'm not much help on the chore issue. I only have one bird, so daily cleaning is easy, no matter how messy or destructive or reckless he is... and he is!

 

[LeaKP]

Haha, yes, it is the bane of those of us owned by birds. Gives whole new meaning to “eau de toilette.”


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[ChristaNL]

Afaik doves are a few of the species (the only one that comes to mind anyway) that can actually drink like we do (through a straw) -- most birds just scoop a beak full and toss it down their throats by lifting the beak skywards, pigeons etc. just dip the beak in and pump it up.

So a small, deep enough reservoir for those beaks could work very well.

(My parrots have waterbottles, they love messing with the little ball that closes of the nipple-part- so it is drinks and fun all in one for them.)

 

[dhraiden]

Yech, pellet soup. Groddy stuff to keep clean! I wonder if anyone uses those glass-tube water dispensers? I did for mochi shortly after getting her, but they are also kind of a pain to remove and clean as well - plus, the glass itself is a hazard if it isn't mounted very securely.

 

[Morty]

Mine all have the vertical reservoirs because I cannot stand the poop water. Exception being my GCC's work bowl, but I have overcome this by keeping either his water or food up on the desk and putting the other down in the cage. That way he gets exercise going to either one and it keeps them both clean.

 

[Betrisher]

My Beaks are very fastidious about their water and *never* poop in it, thank goodness. Mind you, they have a very large cage and also a very large water container (extra-deep stainless steel baking dish with a good four inches of water in it). For many years, they never bathed but insisted instead on being sprayed (by me) from a squishy-bottle.

Just this year, Madge began to tentatively stick her head in the water and give it a shake (the head, not the water). Eventually, she stuck her foot in to try and retrieve a toy she had dropped in the bowl. Within minutes, she was immersed in the water and sinking herself, wings akimbo and mouth open in bliss! It was so lovely to see and made me laugh at my girl's cleverness. Since then, Barney has copied Madge and now they both enjoy a good bath (saves me suffering from squishy-bottle-operator's-finger).

Rosetta, on the other hand, is a frustrated washerwoman. She washes everything in her water bowl (big glass casserole dish), from her plastic ball to her rattle to strips of cardboard to moulted feathers. Her current favourite toy is a big orange (broken) carabiner. As soon as I hand it to her, she takes it straight to the water bowl to wash it. Of course, eventually, she drops it and there it lies, sunk in the water. No probs! Rosetta has recently learned to puddle about in the dish with her foot and retrieve the toy!

The most annoying thing, though, is that 'setta appears to select the green pellets from out of her mix and hoick them into the water from her perch. Now, I always take great care to place my water dishes *not* near any perches, but 'setta's astute enough to take aim and succeed most times. This drives me nuts because her water becomes green soup in no time at all. There's nothing for it but to change the water as soon as it gets dirty. O yay.

One thing that worries me about vertical drinkers is that birds can't bathe in one of those. I've never known of a bird that didn't bathe, so that's why I wouldn't use those.

 

[Cooks]

Cooks slept ontop of her food bowl and permanently had seeds stuck too her bum, so after day 3 of covert ninja butt cleaning mission. i moved her bowl, but she still gets poop in her water and now she added seeds,

 

[birdlover12345]

Oh the hypocrisy! Do we humans not poop in water on a regular basis? Granted, we are not expected to drink toilet water but most times the water in or toilets is as clean as what comes out of the kitchen faucets. Just sayin'.


Anyway, maybe try using a smaller water bowl which is harder to 'hit'?

 

[LaManuka]

When I look back upon my life thus far, I stop at moments like these and realize that bird poop, whichever way it comes, and whosoever’s fluffy bum has produced it, has been the one truly constant feature.

I think there’s something in that for all of us really