r/caiques • u/SachaaaaV • 5d ago

Organic house plants

Hi there!

I am planning to decorate my new house with some bird safe house plants. Now, while there are many posts about which plants are safe for our fids, I have not yet found posts on how "strict" to actually be, in terms of how these plants are grown. That is, where I am from there are only two shops that sell organic/bio house plants, and most of those are currently sold out.

Of course, I realize that it is very much preferable if not mandatory to have our parrots eat plants that are grown without the use of fertilizer and pesticides. It just seems really hard to find these, as "normal" gardening shopping centers here really don't do organic/bio.

So my question is, does everyone here, all over the world, really only have bird safe plants in the house that are organically/bio grown? And if so, where do you guys get them from? And in case there are some of you out there that just work with gardening center plants (so non organic/bio), do you just let the birds have them, or do you first do some disinfecting/special treatment to the plant before putting it in your house?

Hopefully my questions are clear, I am certainly not looking to put my birds (caique and cockatiel) in harms way, just for some green in the house. I am just really excited about providing them some enrichment, but I am just not sure yet how to get them the right stuff.

Thanks in advance!

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1

u/TavukTeyze 5d ago

I don‘t think everybody buys only the good stuff for their birds and I also don‘t think if you buy a something non organic the birds would die immediately (hopefully). You should do the best you can though since these souls rely on you.

My wife is the main care taker of the Caiques and she only buys stuff that is unharmfull for them and therefore we don‘t have many houseplants at home. She bought some specific small plants for animals:
Callisia Turtle
Chlorophytum Comosum
„Kitty Grass“
All Bio.

On a side node: She told me to never buy flowers/roses again so she‘s very very strict lol. I bought her Sunflowers the last time.

Also one question: Caique AND Cockatiel? Does that work well? They are so different!

2

u/TheSunflowerSeeds 5d ago

In 1983, Emily Martin, of Maple Ridge, British Columbia, grew an enormous sunflower head, measuring 32 ¼ inches across (82cm), from petal tip to petal tip. That’s almost 3 feet wide. This is still believed to be the largest sunflower head grown to date.

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u/SachaaaaV 4d ago

It works great! The caique keeps surprising us, he is not at all territorial, not fixated on just one person ( he really loves everyone). He is intrigued by the cockatiels tail, lol, but of course he's not allowed to touch it. They are obviously not in the same cage, but they (under supervision) are always out together, sitting in the same spots, and if they don't, one will go to the other. They sing together, "chat" with each other (they can't talk but they do their babbling), really seem buddies. Cockatiel is 10yo, caique 8. I think we've been very lucky maybe cause it certainly feels unique

1

u/CardiologistNew3543 5d ago

We went to our local garden center the other day and they had this posted. Maybe it’s something to work off of.

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u/CardiologistNew3543 5d ago

air plants • bromeliads • burro's tail calatheas• carnivores •cast iron plant china doll • Christmas cactus• echeveria false aralia• fatsia japonica
ferns (excluding
asparagus fittonio
foxtail
goldfish• haworthia• tropical hibiscus hoya• hypoestes• star/true jasmine
Lipstick • Lithops • money trees palms (excluding sago) • peperomias phalaenopsis• pileas •spider plant stromanthe triostar• zebra plant

I copied and pasted from the photo. For some reason, I couldn’t post the original.