Five life-saving products for cockatiel parents (part 2)
10.6.2025
Translation: Jessica Johnson-Ferguson
Pictures: Anika Schulz
Are your birds wreaking havoc in your home? These tools will help you keep things in order.
When it comes to cockatiels or parakeets, more 🦜= more ❤️ = more dirt. Ever since my cockatiels moved in, my living room is a total mess. Think feathers lying around everywhere, crumbs on the sofa and shelves covered in dust.
Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t change Rio, Cookie and Pebbles for the world. The little birds are way too much fun. And the love story between Cookie and Pebbles doesn’t fail to warm my heart. But I also have to do a hell of a lot of cleaning since they’ve been living with us.
A few months ago, I wrote an article about life-saving products for cockatiel parents. Here’s part two, straight from the daily life of a bird mum.
Wet wipes
Right, let’s get right down to the nitty-gritty with the first tip. Cockatiels drop a small pile of poo every 15 to 30 minutes – no matter where they might be. The good news? It doesn’t smell. The bad news? Once the droppings are dry, it’s tough to remove them.
That’s why I regularly scurry about the room, cleaning up the droppings in good time. In my experience, this works best with wet wipes for babies. They’re great at absorbing dirt and, unlike wet toilet paper, can endure a bit of scrubbing. To avoid exposing my birdies to chemicals, I use wipes without alcohol or fragrances.
Nail brush
And what if poo dries? Then all you can do is scrub. The best way to do this is with an old toothbrush or a nail brush. I use these tools to clean the «cockatiel tree» of my babies. What I do is pop the bird’s playground under the shower to soften the droppings a little. The rest comes off well with the brush. All that’s left then is for the tree to dry.
Hair clips
If you keep your birds in a species-appropriate way, you can provide them with plenty of opportunities to nibble. Rio, Cookie and Pebbles are currently really into kohlrabi leaves and dried grasses. To prevent the trio from scattering their snacks all over the living room in a second, I clip the food to the cage with hair clips. I now have clips in different sizes: small ones for vegetable sticks and large ones for tufts of grass.
Swiffer
Cockatiels, like most cockatoos, are incredibly dusty. That’s because they have so-called powder down. Those are the very fine feathers that disintegrate into dust when touched. Cockatiels use it to waterproof their feathers. The only issue is that the stuff goes flying around the place every time the cockatiels shake themselves or fly about. The dust looks really bad after a few days, especially on dark furniture.
At first, I tried to get rid of the dust with a microfibre cloth. But that wasn’t very fun. That’s until I treated myself to a Swiffer – a family pack, of course. Since then, cleaning has been quicker and I catch more dirt. In any case, the Swiffer is often (dark) grey afterwards.
Lint roller
Before I move on to the next tip, I’d like to take back a recommendation first. In my last post about life-saving products for cockatiel parents, I wrote about a handheld vacuum cleaner I’d got to remove feathers and the like from the sofa.
Well, unfortunately this hasn’t been working well in the long run. The small feathers in particular tend to get caught on the slightly rough fabric of my sofa. The hand vacuum cleaner can’t cope with this. That’s why I use a lint roller more often now. Namely, the «extra sticky for animal hair» model. What helps with cats also helps with cockatiels, it seems.
Do you have more tips for everyday life with cockatiels? Share your experience with the Community!
Header image: Anika Schulz
Anika Schulz
Teamleader Editorial
Anika.Schulz@galaxus.deAs a child, I was socialised with Mario Kart on SNES before ending up in journalism after graduating from high school. As a team leader at Galaxus, I'm responsible for news. I'm also a trekkie and an engineer.
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