Importance of Perches

Perches are very important to our birds health and well-being. Since our birds spent their entire lives on their feet, we need to take care of them. Within your birds cage, there should be at least 5 different perches. By different I do not mean the dowel perches that come with cages, as they’re known to be the worst perches for your birds. Different perches are perches that are made out of different woods, textures, and thicknesses. Common perches are grapevine, manzanita, Java, and chola. Ideally, perches would still have bark or texture on them so they double as enrichment and stimulate natural perching in the wild.

When you don’t have proper perching within the birds cage, it’s easy for them to develop pressure sores on the bottom of their feet. These are red hot spot areas on the bottom of the feet that will resolve themselves once perching has been addressed. But, if you do not address perching and let the pressure sores continue, you’re bird is an an increased risk of bumble foot, which can get into the bone and become deadly. This is more apparent in lazier parrot species, like amazons, but affects all species and birds alike. To learn more about pressure sores and bumble foot, visit our blog post here.