One step closer to a less messy bird

Birds like to get into trouble and make messes, especially my green cheek conure, Jiles (see sidebar for photo). He's only about four or five inches tall, but he leaves a swath of destruction behind him a mile wide. He loves shredding Kleenexes, tearing up his cage liner, and detaching toys from his cage and throwing them on the floor, often breaking pieces off in the process. He recently figured out that he's strong enough to pick up his entire food or water dish and throw it on the cage floor. It wouldn't be such a big deal if his bird food weren't so expensive and the water didn't make such a mess, but it is and it does, ergo problem. I've explained to him time and again that food and water dishes are a privilege, not a right, but he just keeps on picking them up and throwing them down with renewed gusto.

I got sick of cleaning up his spilled dishes, so I tried tying them down with those little twisty things that come with garbage and bread bags. They just piqued his curiosity. He actually started getting excited when he would see me coming with a new twist tie and set to work on it like a puzzle to solve, a birdie Rubik's cube. Pretty soon he learned how to untwist them, as evidenced by the mangled twisties left on the floor beneath his cage and the spilled food and water on the cage floor. I was just about to surrender when I read a blog post by another bird nerd whose Senegal parrot kept escaping through her food doors (thankfully Jiles hadn't figure out how to do that yet, but I swear it was coming). He solved the problem by buying a couple of those spring-loaded clip key chains and locking the food door from the outside. Freaking brilliant! There was my solution!

I hit up the local Lowe's, but all theirs were too big for what I needed, so I opted for a couple of small luggage locks. Jiles instantly climbed down and started trying to chew through the locks when he saw me clipping them on. Sucker. Those babies worked like a charm. No more wasted food or sopping, gooey cage liners to clean up. I'm going to be whizzed if I have to remove the keys because Jiles learned how to work them. And I wouldn't put it past him. He's a pretty smart little bird.

Now, if you're lucky, I might share my solution for cleaning algae out of aquariums.