How To Teach A Parrot To Bathe – Step by Step

Encouraging a bird to bathe seems to be a common struggle among parrot owners so do not feel bad! There are a variety of positive and negative ways you can encourage a bird to bathe, you want to avoid the negative ones because you want this to be a positive task, in the long term it will make it easier and a much more enjoyable experience if you take it slow.

There are a variety of ways you can encourage your bird to bathe. Bathing is great for their feathers and skin and a fantastic way to cut down on the dander some birds produce.

When wet birds cannot fly away as easily so you may see them start to shake this is to make themselves dry faster (or they could be cold if they are in a cold environment but you shouldn’t be bathing your bird in a cold environment)

Conditions birds naturally want to bathe in

• When its hot out – just like you your bird would much rather get wet on a hot day to cool down or to have fun, it wont take them long to dry off and it will not make them cold.
• Safety – if your bird feels threatened in an environment they will not be able to relax enough to bathe. If bird gets super wet it makes it more difficult for them to fly away from a situation they feel unsafe in.

ways to encourage a bird to bathe

• Play with their water; sometimes the movement of the water will excite the bird (similar to in the wild water is usually moving) they may start by just moving their beak around in the water but don’t stop eventually they will start doing some bathing behaviours.
• Placing some greens like spinach or lettuce in the bottom of the dish tends to entice little birds (budgies especially love this) to bathe, this is usually how they bathe in the wild by rubbing themselves against the wet grass.
• Sink/running water; some birds get very excited when you do run the water in the sink to do dishes, allow your bird to investigate this, some birds love this and other don’t so do not force your bird into the water.
• Spraying with a spray bottle above your bird acts similar to mist or rain
• Small dishes; one of my budgies LOVED bathing in dishes that were far to small for her – not sure if she was afraid of the size of her bath dish before or what but this is always something to try out.

Do they need soap?

NO, they parrots can clean themselves just with water soap and other feather refreshers etc. sold are NOT good for your parrot! In the wild they do not use that and in our homes they still don’t need that!

If you feel like it you can mix a bit of aloe vera in with the water for their bath and that can soothe them during molts and is overall good for feather and skin health but that is the only thing I would ever add to bath water.