Cage Liners

Cage Liners

Selecting the lining for the bottom of your bird's cage is an important decision - one that could save your bird's life. Safety, of course, is the main concern when selecting anything for your pet and when you're selecting a cage liner, it is of utmost importance! Although cage liner material should ideally be kept out of your bird's reach, birds have been known to reach this material regardless. In addition to being safe, the material used to line your bird's cage should render his droppings easy to examine. Changes to the droppings can be an early indication of illness in your pet.

Cage liners should be changed daily to maintain cleanliness and permit daily examination of droppings for any abnormalities that might signal illness in your bird. A number of different type cage liners are available.

Safe cage lining materials include:

Paper products are readily available, inexpensive and safe for your bird. Newspaper, paper towels, plain paper and brown paper are best. Do not use glossy paper or paper printed with colored ink, as these could contain harmful chemicals. Using paper products as cage liners makes it easy to examine your bird's droppings.

Select shavings and pellets are also generally considered safe and are often used as nesting materials. One drawback is their use as a cage liner makes it difficult to examine your bird's droppings because the droppings tend to fall between the shavings and also are readily absorbed making it difficult to observe the consistency of the droppings.

Cedar shavings are NOT recommended as cage liners because they may be damaging to birds, producing symptoms such as dermatitis, allergies and digestive problems. Once again, bird droppings are difficult to examine on a substrate of shavings.