Animal Work-Life Management

               I have a lot of animals in my care; thirteen to be exact. I have ten parrots and three dogs, one being a puppy. Most of my residence are special needs that require mandatory training, multiple medications two times a day, therapy, and monitoring. I also run my business doing online consultations, making parrot enrichment, so on and so forth. How do I manage it all? I talk a lot with my clients about balancing work, life, and animal care, especially for avian species. Bird’s are a lot to care for, and when you start adding to a flock, that is just more and more work piled up. There are some tricks in order to help manage time better and be able to get everything done in the day, while also having time for yourself.

               The first tip I have is to not go and try to implement all of these ideas at once. Tasks become easier and less stressful when you make it apart of your daily routine. Adding in so many new tasks into your routine at once may bring you a high and feeling of accomplishment for two weeks or so, then the momentum will fade because you feel overwhelmed to remember it all. Starting with one task and giving it a week or more to settle into your routine, then adding another one, will ensure that you have a routine that has longevity. I would make a list of importance to you so you know which tasks to start first. For example, my screaming cockatoo brings a lot of stress to my life. I will prioritize starting an enrichment plan for him before I implement say a shower routine for the birds. Though showering is important, if I am annoyed because of the screaming, I am less motivated to do any chores with the birds, and showering won’t get done.

               Speaking of enrichment plans, enrichment is something that I find is difficult to implement into my schedule. I have a lot of birds and toys to fill up. It can easily take me 2 hours just creating and filling up enrichment items for the birds per day. I love using parrot toys for foraging. So much so that I created my own toy line with foraging in mind with every toy for every size bird. But, filling up the parrot toys is one of the most time consuming forms of foraging for me that I can offer my birds. I do not have the time every single day to do this for every single bird. My solution is to do the foraging when I do have the time and put the items in an airtight storage bin. That way I can grab and go when I need it. I will do it with parrot toys, as well as little foot toys or toy parts I can string up on a stainless steel skewer or put in their food bowls. When I do have the time, I will not grab from the bin, so I save it for when I need it. To learn more about enrichment and foraging, I have an entire online class found here. If you are looking for foraging ideas specifically, you can get inspired with our other online class found here.

               Creating independent animals is crucial to juggling it all. Having Velcro needy animals is a recipe for disaster. Though it is nice to have that companionship and love, you are also hindering your abilities to do tasks swiftly and effectively because you have a constant distraction. It also is not healthy for your animal to be so attached because we cannot be with that animal 24/7. What happens when we are gone to run to the store, or for a night out? Staying cooped up and not having time for yourself is also a factor that can lead to an increased stress around management, and it will lead to burnout and other negative side effects. Teaching your animal to be independent, then coming together for moments when you can spend that quality time with them is the key for success. You can train this through making sure the birds needs are met first, then giving them activities to keep them engaged. Making sure the animal has had mental stimulation, physical exercise, and enough social interaction to last them through the duration of time you need to get tasks done. Then, pairing it with an activity like foraging will keep the animal were engaged in their tasks while you do yours. For some birds, you may also want to teach a station. This is a behavior where you ask the bird to stay on a designated area until cued off. I teach this through my online consultations.

               Do not be afraid to keep your bird in their cage while you work if you work from home. Just because you are home does not mean your bird needs to be out of the cage. On days when I am busy, I do not let the bird’s out until I am done working. I make sure they have foraging in their cages to keep them occupied, and I check in with them throughout the day. Cages are not a bad thing. They are only a negative enclosure when the environment is not set up properly for the bird. This includes if the cage is too small, under stimulating, has negative associations towards it (like using it for a “time-out” punishment), or they spend too much time in it. A cage is a safe space, like a bedroom, for your bird to be a bird. This can be especially helpful while you are teaching your bird more independence outside of the work day to later implement into the work day.

               Train your animals to be better behaved. This makes such a huge difference. Teaching your animals what you want them to do will give them direction to your expectations. For example, when I got my basset puppy Ramona, she would chew furniture or the walls or my rubber boots, despite having tons of toys around. She was bored when I was doing chores, and did not know what was appropriate. This would be very frustrating because I have enough damage to my house from the parrots! I don’t need my dog to do it too! So, I taught her a station, in the dog industry it is often referred to as a “place” because it is an incompatible behavior to what I do not like her doing. She cannot chew my walls when she is in her place. I taught her this and always left tons of toys in her reach, including rubber ones, so she had items she could focus on and do similar behaviors that are far more desirable. That allowed me to do chores without coming to check on her every few minutes.

               I also trained the birds to do a variety of behaviors to aid me with their care. Stations are a huge thing I love to train so I know where animals are. This helps me when I am cleaning cages, or I am walking in and out of the room unable to watch them with my undivided attention. I taught birds to step up extremely reliably for easy transport. All my birds are target trained to allow me to better direct them where I need them to go, as well as get out some physical and mental stimulation. Birds who get medicine, and most of the rest of the flock, are all syringe trained to make medication administration quick and easy!  I teach them fun tricks to be able to ask for at random to aid in their mental stimulation, which brings overall calmness. I trained them all to bathe, so that can make showering faster and easier.

               Keep on top of cleaning! Clean every single day for a short amount of time. I spend at least a hour each day throughout the day cleaning up after the birds, or in my main house. That way when the big deep cleaning day comes, half the work is already done. I clean not just the floor, or the paper, but I also will dust the bars or wipe the grates. I was fortunate enough to build the bird house to aid in cleaning. The big aviaries have less nooks and hard to reach areas in them to clean, which takes less time to clean them and a better clean. I also do not have to deal with grates or paper with most cages. I just go in a few times a day to wipe up droppings off the floor before they dry like cement. I also use a steam cleaner to help me clean, but it is not as effective on bars as it is on the floor. There is still some scrubbing needed, and more time, to use it on the bars or grates. It is still effective, but darn dish soap and a brush or vinegar water soak over the mess for a few minutes does an equal job without the sanitizing properties the steam cleaner has.

               Food-prep your animal’s fresh meals. Chopping it all in one day to last four-five days and putting it either in one large container or multiple smaller ones for daily proportions can be extremely helpful to just grab and go. Most produce does well when stored in an air tight container for that long as well as they are stored properly. I used to fill up mason jars for daily chop amounts for all my birds. But because I do not have a dishwasher, I found that cleaning individual cans compared to one big one took up more time than it was worth.

               This may throw a loop in things. At the end of the day, I want to enjoy my animals. I chose to share my life with them. Though the require so much care and work, I would rather skip cleaning aviaries for the day, pick it up tomorrow, and just hangout with the animals. When the animals become just chores and things you care for rather than companions and having those experiences, it will decrease your motivation to work a bit harder throughout the day to get it all done. You cannot always just neglect chores, especially important ones like daily food and water changing. But occasionally, for little things, it is fine. It will not be the end of the world. Since we love these guys so much that we have overloaded our work schedule, we better get our money’s worth if you know what I am saying.

               An important concept to keep in mind is we cannot control our emotions, but we can control our actions. We may feel exhausted, frustrated, or drained, and we cannot control those emotions. We can control our actions that will modify what emotions we feel. Yes, after work, I just want to relax. If I can push myself for two more hours that I want to go, I will get so much more done so I am not feeling so negative and overwhelmed. It is a mind trick that can be a challenge to get into the habit of initially, but will save you in the end. Acknowledge your feelings, but tell yourself you can do it. Take some deep breaths and continue.

               An object in motion stays in motion. This is a HUGE one for me. I have chronic pain, so when I sit down and get some relief, my motivation to continue doing things is at an all time low! I will also get distracted by my phone due to my social media presence and wanting to help others. Breaks are important, but try not to sit down. If you do sit down, sit in an uncomfortable chair, or at the edge of your seat, so you are not too comfortable to not want to get back up again. I try to remain standing as much as I can.

               I have mentioned this throughout, but make time for yourself. Have a day where you can take a break from all the taxing chores. Though you “lose a day” you gain the ability to continue through the next week of tasks. I also recommend a small amount of time everyday that you can just dedicate to what you want to do. My time every day is 8:00-10:00pm on week days, and I try to choose a day of the week where I can relax. Some weekends, I am way to busy to have that opportunity, and I am fortunate enough as a business owner that I can say “well Tuesday will be my day off.” Play videogames, read a book, do self-care, have a hobby, or just sit and watch TV. Whatever you like to do, make sure you put time into your routine to do that.

               I have talked a lot about rearranging and squeezing things into your routine in order to get everything done. I did not go over how exactly to do that. I know there are experts out there on time management strategies, schedule planning, etc. What I did was I printed out a table with three columns. The left one was labeled “time.” The middle column was labeled “task.” The right column was labeled “importance.” What I did was walked myself through my average day. I labeled at what time I would do what activity, name the activity, and then label it if it was a necessity, important, or not as much. For example, a necessity is cleaning bowls, important is cleaning cages, and not as important was say bathing birds. That helps me determine if I want more quality time with the birds which tasks I can pick up the next day, and I will just remember that their significance level has increased since it was not done the day before. Be sure to have time blocks for other tasks to pop up! Not every day is the same, so preparing for that will be helpful to not feel overwhelmed. Once the schedule is created, then you just follow it and get into a behavioral pattern. I go through my day with little thought as to what is next; it is instinctual.

               Start small, start easy, and be kind to yourself. We are all human, including me. We have good days and bad. It is a process that can take quite some time to get into the habit of. Hopefully you have some new tools in your toolkit to utilize. If you have questions, need more personalized tips, or need behavioral help, do not hesitate to contact us! We are here to support and aid in the ways we can!