A clean room for birds: 5 ways to keep your aviary clean

A clean environment for your bird will keep you and your pet healthier. Sometimes it may seem like effective cleaning is easier to talk about than actually do. But following the 5 suggestions below will help you drastically reduce the number of particles in your bird’s room.

Avoid Particle Traps —- There are so many places in the regular home and even in the bird room that can trap allergens. Wall-to-wall carpet, upholstered furniture, stacks of books and magazines, fabric curtains, horizontal blinds, the list goes on and on.

Most of these surfaces are woven and can trap an incredible amount of particles that can and do get airborne with daily activities. The more of these you can remove, the better you can thoroughly clean and really reduce the number of particles that are available to enter the air.

As you add and replace furniture in your room and birdhouse, think about bird-friendly replacements. Opt for easy to clean rugs that are easy to wash. Consider furniture that can be wiped clean with a damp cloth instead of fabric-covered pieces.

Choose linoleum, tile, wood, or another hard surface that can be mopped clean. And think of roll-and-clean blinds and vertical blinds as options that will allow more particles to fall to the floor.

Say no — Saying no to just one more bird can mean that the bird or birds you’ve already adopted will have a better life. If you are a bird lover, you probably want to give all the homeless birds a good life. But depending on the size of your space, continuing to add birds past a certain point makes it nearly impossible to maintain healthy conditions.

The “more is better” rule does not apply in this situation. Providing a good life for fewer birds beats having a bunch of birds that you can’t care for properly.

Clean Often – How often you clean will be your decision based on your situation. But you will be able to tell if your schedule is running pretty quickly. Some people can clean every other day and others feel like they need to clean every day and sometimes more than once a day.

Your frequency will depend on the number and type of birds you have. Those with dusty birds like African Greys, Cockatoos or Cockatoos may find that more frequent cleaning is necessary to keep up with the incessant white dust these parrots produce.

The goal is literally to keep dander and dust down. Your room doesn’t need to be able to pass the white glove test, but it almost does.

Clean Smarter—One of the best ways to really remove particles from circulation is to use water to clean. Adding water to the mix with a damp mop or cloth makes the particles too heavy to escape into the air again and gives you a better chance of permanently removing them.

A vacuum with a HEPA or high-efficiency particulate arresting filter is also a great way to make sure what’s sucked into the vacuum stays in the vacuum. Keep the broom and mop out of the mix and opt for the vacuum.

Filter the air — Regardless of how smart or how often you clean, particles will get into the air. Particles only come with the territory when you live with birds. The only way to reliably keep your air clean is to continuously filter it.

HEPA filtration is better because its only byproduct is fresh air. There are no ionized particles or ozone levels to worry about.

Hospitals use HEPA filtration and it will surely work for you in your situation. This type of filter must have proven that it is capable of removing 99.97% of airborne particles that are .3 microns or larger.

Together, these 5 steps can get you closer to providing a wonderful life for your avian friends and a healthier life for everyone who lives with them.

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