When people consider getting a bird, they often don't realize how extensive proper pet bird care should be. In the minds of many people, bird care simply means feeding it, giving it fresh water and cleaning its cage, and then leaving the animal alone the rest of the time to sing, flutter and look decorative. But birds are complex creatures, and bird health involves much more effort than that. Treating one like the equivalent of a plant hanging from a hook, which can be ignored except at watering/feeding time, is simply not enough.
Caring for a pet bird requires that you deal with its psyche, as well as its physical needs. This is a creature designed to fly high and free through open spaces, so placing it in a cage may be compared, psychologically, to putting a human in a jail cell. Yet your little feathered friend is not a jailbird, so pet bird cages are best if they are as large as possible, allowing the bird to make short flights and flap its wings. If you are able to train it to leave the cage and fly around for exercise at certain times of day, then all the better for both its physical and mental condition. Of course, be cautious about this if you also have a cat or other pets.
You can do other things as well to help with bird health on the psychological level. Providing toys and activity centers is important, to keep its mind occupied and interested. Birds can, simply put, get very bored with nothing to do. So a website like www.birdyboredombusters.com, for example, can provide all sorts of jingly, dangly toys for your bird to play with, along with swings and perches, and items to shred or probe for treats. Pet bird care is as much about keeping the bird entertained as keeping its body functioning.
It may sound odd to think of birds as creatures that want to socialize with you, yet this kind of interaction is also a part of pet bird care. Even if you feel it's not safe to open the pet bird cage and let your bird fly freely, you can still spend some time each day talking to it. It may even grow comfortable with your opening the age and putting your hand in so it can sit on a finger or be stroked. Caring for your bird involves keeping it active and interested as well as just seeing to its physical needs.
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