My roommates keep birds but they never clean the cage often enough, can it be harmful to a person at all? I don’t really go close to it but…
Dirty birdcages contain feces. Feces are bad for everyone; humans and birds alike can suffer from a dirty cage. Bacteria and spores from feces can get into the air and be harmful to a person’s upper respiratory health. This can be especially bad for people with asthma or lowered immune systems. You should change or freshen the birds litter or newspaper whenever it becomes dirty with feces and food. Tell your roomates to clean up the dirty cage for their health and that of their pets!
We had a really dirty birdcage once, and it got all moldy and when my sister finally cleaned it, all the mold flew into the air and made her cough for a few minutes… she never let it get that bad again. I think not only could it harm humans, it could be dangerous for the animal inside the cage, seeing as it’s lungs are much smaller and more delicate.
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Dirty birdcages contain feces. Feces are bad for everyone; humans and birds alike can suffer from a dirty cage. Bacteria and spores from feces can get into the air and be harmful to a person’s upper respiratory health. This can be especially bad for people with asthma or lowered immune systems. You should change or freshen the birds litter or newspaper whenever it becomes dirty with feces and food. Tell your roomates to clean up the dirty cage for their health and that of their pets!
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Bird owner.
If it ever gets bad enough to be harmful to a person, then the poor bird is in real danger! Birds are much smaller and have much more sensitive respiratory systems than people! This is actually why I spray the papers in the cages with water before taking them out. The water reduces the amount of stuff getting flung into the air by sort of weighing it down onto the paper.
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If you had to clean a bird cage because of fecal matter, you’d be cleaning the cage every 15 mins, LOL, let’s get real here.
In order to have an immune system, you need negative bacteria to have antibodies against them. This depends on "how long" and what you consider to be "clean" and their description of being the same terminology, they just may be different. You also don’t say what species of birds they keep and that DOES make a difference! We could compare apples to oranges here or parakeet to a macaw or a week to months, but you didn’t state either in your question.
So I’ll spell it out for you. If your room mate has a parakeet or two for that matter, and don’t clean the cage for a few weeks, yes it can get pretty nasty. Is it harmful to YOUR health? It can be if fungus is growing in the cage, and depending on where you live and if it’s the summer months. Since we are coming up on spring, it’s the molt season and feathers are going to be flying every where and that can cause an upper respiratory problem in humans and in birds.
A single bird can be left go for about 2 weeks but more then one bird (notice i said plural birds) need to be changed once a week and then the cage broken down once a month and really cleaned and sanitized the whole bottom of the cage at least. If your room mates can’t do that, then i’d suggest you have them find another home for their birds or you find another home for them. If they can’t take care of them properly it’s called animal abuse/neglect.
It’s not fair to the birds to live in, what you call filth, whether they think so or not.
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28+ years of breeding endangered species, avian certified, avian behavioral specialist, 180+ pairs of birds, rescue, & a sense of humor LOL