How often should you change budgie’s food and water bowl. There is not a black and white answer to this. It depends on many factors, such as size of the bird, size of the dish (food or water), the temperature of the room (heated or non-heated room), food dishes are in the cage or outside of the cage, how many budgies are eating at what times.
The basics should be kept in mind that if you have sick or healthy budgies then change their dishes every day just to clean them out completely.
Healthy budgies do not get sick very often because they have stronger immune systems and they do not require as much cleaning as the sick budgies.
The most common problem we see is budgies that eat too fast and end up with crop stasis (food caught in the crop) because of eating too fast.
Some will even pick out their food from their water dish to make sure they get every last seed on the ground. This not only causes crop stasis but also watery droppings.
How often should you change budgie’s food and water bowl
Often when birds are left alone to eat, they will dip their food into the water cup which can cause a breeding ground of bacteria. Make sure to clean out your pet bird’s water bowl daily, and replace it if ever anything is floating in it – otherwise you might be putting your pet in danger.
Watery droppings
Birds need clean fresh water daily. This not only helps them to drink it but they can also wash their food in the water dish, which makes it softer and easier for the budgie to eat.
Also, many budgies will poop in their water dishes because of the small size of the bowl. I have seen people buy a larger bowl thinking that this will solve the problem.
The water dish should be no larger than 3 times the width of your budgie’s head and 2 times the height of their head.
This will guarantee that they cannot get into the bowl of water themselves because of this size ratio.
There are many factors that determine how often you need to clean out your budgie’s food and water dish, but the basic answer is every day.
We all forget sometimes or if we are busy with other things or our budgies do not show any signs of illness then it may go 2-3 days without cleaning their dishes; however, this should be an exception and not a rule.
Cleaning your budgie’s food bowl
I know that this is a pain in the neck, but it also helps with behavior training by placing some of your budgie’s favorite treats (sunflower seeds) on the top of their food bowl; therefore, they will jump up each time you go into their cage room to eat them and say hello.
This method is also helpful with any type of behavior training, but I will talk more about this in another post.
You can clean their food dish with soap and water or by using a natural dishwasher tablet. Dawn is the best dishwashing soap because it is natural and safe for your budgie to eat.
However, if you are not comfortable with putting something in their dish that is not food then go ahead and use natural dishwashing soap.
As far as the type of bowl, I prefer to use metal for my birds because it is much easier to keep clean.
The plastic ones always get chewed up when the bird decides that they want to make it into a toy (not good).
There are many bird owners that have told me that they have had their budgie’s eating out of plastic dishes for years with no problems. Well, this is great if it works for you, but I prefer to use metal dishes even though they are harder to clean.
I know some people will say that the seed shells get stuck on the bottom of the metal dish and this is why they prefer to use plastic.
My answer to that is just clean them out before you refill your budgie’s food and water bowls and there will be no problem with seed shells.
Feeding
When feeding our birds we should make sure that we do not put too much food in their dishes because if we do then they might get crop stasis or cause watery droppings. The basic rule of thumb is once a day and no more than 1/4 cup for larger-sized budgies and 1 teaspoon for smaller-sized budgies.
Final Tips
- Clean your budgie’s food and water dish every day
- Change the type of bowl to prevent chewing on the plastic dishes
- Do not overfeed
- Clean their food bowl before refilling it with new seed mix
Conclusion
How often should you change budgie’s food and water bowl. To conclude, budgie’s need clean fresh food and water daily. If you do not wish to change their dishes this often then take your budgie to an avian veterinarian because they can get sick without proper hygiene.
It is also helpful with bird behavior training by placing treats on top of the dishes, but overall it needs to be done daily to ensure proper health of your budgie.