Hi there!
I’m not allergic to my bird but his current food blend contains walnuts so every day for the past 2.5 months I’ve been sneezy, and stuffy, feeding him releases walnut dust in the air so I’m holding in my breath for dear life. Of course he’s also super dusty so what I do is I have a towel under his cage to catch any dust, feathers, or fallen food that goes through the bars. I vacuum the entire room every 2 days sometimes daily because of the dust and my allergies, using the hose sucker thing along the bottom of the bars and places that dust and food get trapped. Then I vacuum over the towel (if ur vacuum is able to do that without sucking in the towel immediately, or just use the hose, or shake it off outside with a mask on). Bathe/mist your bird every week because it keeps the powder down and vacuum once they’re dry (they lose a lot of tiny feathers and dust after baths). Change the lining on the cage. Poop, dust, food, feathers — everything is on the lining paper so make sure to change that as often as needed, in your case probably daily or at least 3 times a week. If there’s a room that you and your family don’t spend tons of time in, your bird cage should be set up there as it can reduce allergies and reduce the need to frequently clean your house. Lastly, OTC allergy medicine is great for when you’re spending time with your feathered friend.

Hope this helps!

Just a friendly teen with a birdie <3

 

Thank you for ur advice! I would love to try the towel method but I had a question abt it. Wouldn't the birds poop on the towel since it's directly under them,? Or is there another way ur keeping it poop free 😓😂

 

Allergy's can be difficult to deal with when you own one of the dustiest birds on the planet. I too suffer from allergy symptoms so I had to confine my birds to one room in the house. I have a good honeywell air purifier and I am constantly changing the disposable filter and hoovering/vacuuming the main carbon filter every few days.

My tiels were not the best bathers ... but I have a canary that bathes 10 times a day so I leave a large dish of fresh water on top of a flight cage for him to bath and the tiels and budgies have decided that this swimming pool is the place to be and they use it often each day so that has helped to cut down on the dust and dander.

My main source of attack on all my tiel dust is to vacuum the entire room daily, it may seem excessive to some but I have 10 birds who think "flinging" seeds all over the floor is fun so I have to vacuum to keep mice away. I vacuum the walls and furniture in the room once every week and have found this has kept the dander and dust low so living in the bird room is good and healthy for me ... and my birds.

Good luck with your journey to rid yourself of dust and dander. Its a full time job!

 

Thank you so much for ur advice. Do u vacuum the entire cage? I've only focused on vacuuming the removable parts and the bottom of the cage.
As for a bath, my birds hate it so much. They each have a mind of their own and when one wants to bath, the other doesn't 😅. I do bathe them once a week or once every 2 weeks at most.
The allergies weren't this bad when we had only 5 of them. We got a new member a month back. And he/she is going through a really right molt rn. So maybe rhta could be the reason for this sudden burst of allergies??

 

I clean the birds cages top to bottom every other day and wipe everything down with a damp cloth (perches bars and all toys need wiping too.

The vacuuming I refer to in my other post is the carpet and floors and areas all around the cages, I also vacuum the walls as they collect the dust but we can't see it. I have 3 large flight cages to deal with so seeds and fresh food fall to the floor area daily so I vacuum to keep pests and mice away. I have large drop sheets I place under and around each cage and most seed husks and seeds and food falls on the sheets which I shake outside daily. I wash these sheets every 3 or 4 days and put fresh clean ones back under the cages.

Allergies make me crazy the day after it rains ... the dampness from the rain seems to tamp the dust in the house down to floor level and it gets damp when it rains. When the rain is over and things start to dry up outside and the air in the house is fresher and dry I start sneezing my head off. So rain from a day/night before can be causing this problem for you too.

 

Oh my god. That makes so much sense. I don't know why I never thought of the damp.cloth method 😭 also it's the rainy season where I'm at so that explains a lot as to why the allergies went up. Thank you so much for explanation ☺💕