Feeling a little overwhelmed lately

[Jally]

I will deal with it, but I just wanted to whine a little... At last count I have,
1. Peanut
2. Kiwi
3. Peaches
4. Oreo
5. Lolli
6. Rudy
Six lovebirds, and 3 lovebird babies still with momma but the oldest is 5 weeks so soon they will be in their own cage.

I also have 2 budgies, 1 tiel, 2 Sun Conures, and 1 Amazon. :omg: That's a total of 15 birds. Most days I feel like a hoarder because it is all I can do to keep the bird area clean. Last time I gave away babies, they got killed by a dog so I feel that no one else is to leave this house! :very_sad:

I know what I need; I need a better system or routine. At the moment, my guys are loose in the dining room and kitchen. I am always present when I am cooking and put the nosy little ones (aka Peanut, Kiwi, and Evie the tiel) away if they get too close to the stove. The Amazon is in the living room most of the time, but she has a meltdown if I am not in the same room as her. I do call to her when she asks for me (not when she screams though), but it doesn't seem to be enough.

Hubby is gone from 4:30AM until 6:45PM which means we have to eat, clean up from dinner, put birds to bed, relax for an hour and then head to bed ourselves. It makes for a long and hectic day!

Ok, I am done whining :blush: Thanks for listening. :)

[linda040899]

Suggestions for a better system coming up, but I need to know your current routine.... Heaven only knows that I wish I only had 15 birds. Heck, 7 of mine are larger parrots, including 2 Amazons and 3 Greys.

Let me share a little bit about how I handle everything that I have. First and foremost, make things simple. How many cages do you have, total? My outside aviary (breeders) consists of 53 cages, although not all are occupied, as I don't use the very lower row of cages in any of the stacked cages I have there. I have a rolling cart that will go between the cages on each side of the center walkway and I feed everyone going from left to right and then change water going back the other way. My cart is large enough to hold containers that I use to take food for everyone out there and I have an empty container to collect the uneaten food from dishes before I refill them. The collection container is the one I then take to my seed saver so that about 3/4 of what I used to throw away can be cleaned, saved and used for another feeding. If I'm short of time, I collect all my water dishes, put them in the dishwasher and that frees up time for me to do other things. I can feed/clean that aviary while the dishwasher takes care of cleaning the water dishes for me. If I'm not letting the dishwasher clean my water dishes, I have 3 one gallon empty water containers that I use to change the water. A 5 gallon bucket catches the dirty water and water that I use to rinse each dish and I have another gallon of filtered water that I use to refill each dish.

Shop vacs may not be pretty but they sure pick up whatever mess happens to be on the floor and there's no bag to throw away. I just take the bottom container out to my garbage can, dump it, clean the filter and it's ready for the next use. Keep in mind that you can put a LOT of mess in a 5 gallon size Shop vac! For just quick touch ups, I bought (and LOVE) my Hoover Flair lightweight vac. It's not intended to take the place of a full size vaccuum, but it sure will pick up little messes so I don't have to look at them!

Think in terms of assembly line and you can probably expand on some of my ideas. :)

[Jally]

Right there are 2 of my issues. My vacuum cleaner is a canister and I end up on my hands and knees getting into every corner because it doesn't suck very well. And the hose is so thin that every piece of wood or clump of paper clogs it. Shop vacs are so loud though...

And, my kitchen is so small that I had to get a tiny dishwasher. Just putting in water bowls fills the top rack LOL

I have 12 cages, but one is used for a sleep cage only and one is used as a hang out for Princess Sophie, the Amazon while we are in the kitchen because she doesn't care for her playstand. So those 2 cages don't need cleaned on a regular basis.

My routine is to be up by 5:30 because I watch 2 girls in the morning until they get on the school bus at 8. I do some light housework and/or play on the computer since the girls are usually sleeping. Once they get off to school, I get the birds up and fed and then spin around in circles wondering where to start! :confused: :rotfl

Their only set times are when the Suns get to come out to the kitchen (the boy Sun will throw a fit if he isn't out in the kitchen by a certain time each day. His fit consists of getting in his food dish and throwing every piece of food out, which equals more mess for me), lunch time, wake up time and go to bed time. Lunch is at 11:30 when they get their fresh foods and bedtime is 7:30. Bath days are Tuesdays, Wednesdays (for the ones that wouldn't/didn't bathe on Tuesday) and Sunday.

Oh, I forgot, the Amazon's cage is too heavy for me to clean on my own so that is hubby's job... when he thinks about it. >:

I do see some area's where I can improve, such as quit making 10 trips into the kitchen in the mornings and getting a shop vac or at least a better vacuum but since every vacuum I've used so far hasn't been too good, I am hopeless that I will find a better one. :confused:

[Jally]

I forgot to add that I can not imagine having 7 big birds!!! :omg: Sophie is enough! But, she is new to us so we are just learning about each other. 53 cages!!?? Occupied or not, you still would have to keep the cobwebs and dust from accumilating on the lower ones, I would imgaine.

[linda040899]

Occupied or not, you still would have to keep the cobwebs and dust from accumilating on the lower ones
Shop vacs are wonderful things............................................ :happy:

What kind of Amazon is Sophie? I have a Blue Front female and a Double Yellowhead male. Alex (BFA) is 12 and she's quieted down considerably after she turned 10. If she wants to see/be with me, she simply spreads her wings and comes to where I am. I, for one, love Zons!

[linda040899]

Right there are 2 of my issues. My vacuum cleaner is a canister and I end up on my hands and knees getting into every corner because it doesn't suck very well. And the hose is so thin that every piece of wood or clump of paper clogs it. Shop vacs are so loud though...
There are actually some shop vacs that aren't quite as noisy but I'll sacrifice noise level so that I can get the job done quickly.


Once they get off to school, I get the birds up and fed and then spin around in circles wondering where to start! :confused: :rotfl
Can you change water dishes at night before they go to bed so you don't have as much to do in the morning? There have been times when I'm exhausted from work and I don't do anything at night except put birds to bed. In the morning, things get frantic because I have everything to do instead of just part of it. Part is much easier than all.


I do see some area's where I can improve, such as quit making 10 trips into the kitchen in the mornings and getting a shop vac or at least a better vacuum but since every vacuum I've used so far hasn't been too good, I am hopeless that I will find a better one. :confused:
My main vaccuum is a Sharp TwinEnergy. It was suggested that I get this one because the dirt doesn't go through the motor as is the case with many vaccuums. It's an upright that can be used for carpeting, laminent or tile and I can also attach a hose, wands and floor attachment. I have a 12' hose with mine and it works very well. The downside is that it's heavy, which is why I bought the lightweight unit.

[Chickobee]

We do the assembly line thing also, similar to what Linda does. One thing we do differently is that we have two sets of food and water dishes for every cage. Before we begin feeding we fill all of the water cups, food dishes, and the small saucers with their birdie smorgasbord and sprouts.

We use a wheeled cart also. There is a container where we dump the left over food in their dishes, and we also save this to run through the seed saver. What a money saver!!!

We collect all of the water cups and replace them with clean ones, exchange all of the food dishes, and put the little plates of food into each cage. Then all of the dirty food dishes, water cups, and plates go in the dishwasher to be ready for the next morning.

Having the double sets of dishes is the biggest time saver and helps a lot since we do all this before we leave for work at 4:30 a.m.

Another big time saver is that I prepare the birdie bread and lots of veggies in big batches and keep it in the freezer in ziploc bags. This saves time chopping veggies every morning.

For quick cleanups around the bird cages we have a large dustmop. It doesn't do a perfect job but it does quickly get the majority of the mess around the cages into a pile that I can quickly sweep or vacuum up. I decided life is too short to try to have things perfect all the time around the bird cages so I only do a thorough vaccuuming around them once a week. I'd much rather do other things than try to get every bit every day. And, if you've noticed, your birds will happily toss more on the floor as soon as you turn your back!!! :rotfl Food and feathers on the floor are just part of having birds. Oh, and don't forget birdie bombs!!

[Jally]

Hubby and I went to Lowes yesterday to look at the shop vacs. I hemmed and hawed because, I just don't like how loud they are. The salesman thought I was nuts and pointed me in the direction of the vacuum cleaners.

So, after much debate, we headed to Walmart to see what they had, if anything. They had a pretty purple one and a pretty pink one but they had an ugly red one with the words QUIET written on the front of the box. I told hubby that I wanted that one! Even though I have a house full of loud birds, had a daycare, yappy dogs, etc etc, I do not like a lot of loud noises LOL So I was pretty adament about not getting a loud vacuum.

It was such a pretty day that I left hubby to do the vacuuming and my daughter and I took our dogs for a walk :happy: Just the break I needed.

One of my major issues is that my house is a typical manufactured home where all the rooms are laid out, one after the other in a rectangle. My living room is in the front of the house, the kitchen is in the back, then there is the dining room, then the hallway to the bedrooms. Since the "bird room" is in what used to be my dining room, we have to walk thru the dining room to get to any of the other areas of the house. So, if the bird food, toys, poopie, isn't cleaned up, it gets dragged (drug?) to the other parts of the house.

I could leave it, but by the third or so day, it looks like a few birds blew up in my entire house. :blush:

I shouldn't complain, because I really am lucky that I don't have to go to work. We struggle but we struggle more, in other ways, when I do work. Plus, I don't have as many birds as some of you all! :omg: :rofl: Thank you for the suggestions!!

[maya_exquisite]

Reading this makes my head hurt. :rofl: It makes me GRATEFUL that we have a tiny flock (minus two fosters we may have at any given time). :rotfl

(Sorry, I don't mean to laugh at your predicament! :( )