If you don't use a cage grate

[Azalea]

Some bird owners don't use a cage's grate because they don't like cleaning it. If you are one of them, how do you stop the Budgies foraging for dropped food among their feces? They did this once when I tried removing the grate for a few hours.

[Loz]

Nov 30, 2023 15:37:33 GMT Azalea said:

Some bird owners don't use a cage's grate because they don't like cleaning it. If you are one of them, how do you stop the Budgies foraging for dropped food among their feces? They did this once when I tried removing the grate for a few hours.

As you say, there are two schools of thought here.
I employ the grate, to discourage ground feeding in the cage.

[Marianne Marlow]

To be honest, if mine want to forage among their poo, they sometimes do anyway in the playground. Little menaces.

[Ira]

Sometimes they eat their poo if they're nutrient deficient.

Or shred the paper.

At the moment I have all the bowls on the cage floor to contain the mess as we're in a holiday rental, just out of the way of the perches.
But then, even on the platform perches, they poo all over those, or over any other surface I put the bowls on.

Changing the flooring regularly should be fine.

[Hezz]

As has been said, sometimes they will and sometimes not. Most of us use newspaper over the grate as it can be a beggar to clean off a week’s worth of poop. Layers of newspaper and remove a layer each morning after the night poop session. That way I find there is little accumulation during the day as they are out almost all of the time, only back in to feed and then for bed. Also their sleeping spots are away from their feeding stations so that also helps.

[criswell]

There isn't a cage grate in the cage I have. I line the bottom with paper and change it everyday. Most days I see them having a forage on the cage floor. I usually have toys on the bottom of the cage too but don't have at the moment as the new boys were a bit wary of them. They don't spend too much time in the cage during the daytime though, so that moves the problem to the rest of the room which needs a lot of cleaning especially the window sills.

I've seen most of my birds do some clean up work of their own. They pick the droppings off the perches and drop them on the cage floor, which is very helpful of them.

[sweetpea]

Dec 1, 2023 7:51:33 GMT criswell said:

I've seen most of my birds do some clean up work of their own. They pick the droppings off the perches and drop them on the cage floor, which is very helpful of them.

Interesting... I've only had hens clean up after themselves. I assumed it was a "nest box" instinct.

[Ira]

Dec 1, 2023 11:22:11 GMT sweetpea said:

Dec 1, 2023 7:51:33 GMT criswell said:

I've seen most of my birds do some clean up work of their own. They pick the droppings off the perches and drop them on the cage floor, which is very helpful of them.

Interesting... I've only had hens clean up after themselves. I assumed it was a "nest box" instinct.

Gwen will clean a perch, but didn't clean the nest box.

[Marianne Marlow]

Peter and George are in their cage all day, other budgies will come in and join them for long spells, so that cage floor is very very messy by the end of the day. I change it a few times a day sometimes. I gave them millet today too so that is all over the place.

[Loz]

Millet is a very messy business. Millet-treat weigh-days are epically messy.

[Azalea]

Thank you all for the responses. We will probably keep using grates because we've been doing it this long. We line the cage bottom - under the grate - with newspaper, cheap art/craft/construction paper, or sometimes paper towels.

We once tried leftover shredded foraging paper. I liked how it made the cage bottom look almost "grassy", but some owners say that you can be tricked into thinking the bottom is cleaner than it actually is.