Remember the movie Dragonfly where Kevin Costner’s character has a parrot named Big Bird? Kathy Bates’ character was asking Costner how Big Bird was doing in one of the scenes, and Costner simply answered, “Big Bird will outlive us all.” Now, you may have heard a story or two about birds outliving their owners. This is because it is indeed true, however surprising it may be.

If you would take a look at birds as pets, you would not really think that they have it in them to outlive their owners. Being smaller pets, when you compare them to dogs and cats, such a concept would be a bit hard to imagine. Still, studies have given results that support this.

And this is not the only interesting fact about birds as well. Birds have very keen perception. There was even a time when miners used the keen perception of canaries in order to test the quality of the air before they would go down into a deeper portion of mines. There are inevitable health risks and hazards entailed in the profession of mining, especially when it comes to unhealthy levels of air. When the air would reach such levels, the ordinary human being would not really perceive the air as such. We would continue breathing it, as if there’s nothing wrong. However, the situation is completely different with canaries. The canaries would actually be affected in the most adverse manner possible. Worse, there are even times when the canaries would die. However, their deaths would not be in vain at all because they would give the miners more than enough time to evacuate that area wherein the levels of air are already unhealthy.

But let us take birds out of the context of the mine and proceed to the ordinary household. For even in the household, offensive smells can indeed affect pet birds easily, just as the same goes for wild birds. What’s more, there are also items that you can commonly find in households that can be fatal for pet birds. Aerosol sprays, for one thing, can be very toxic for birds. Certain types of polish for furniture can also be very harmful for household birds. And even your ordinary Teflon pans can prove to be dangerous for your pets as well! A rule of thumb here should then be to have such items in a ventilated area. This way, the offensive odors would be flushed outside the system and your pet birds would not have to suffer.

Also, you have to pay extra attention to the chewing habits of your birds. It is an established fact that birds do like to chew. But when a bird chews on items that have just been welded, it just might chew on soldered joints. This can very well cause lead poisoning! Thus, you should keep such items away from your pets. Birds also love to chew on plants. Although this might be perceived as harmless, there are actually a number of plants that are very poisonous. Thus, you have to make a few queries when you are out buying plants for your house. And if you are not too sure about a certain plant, then it’s best that you keep it away from your pet bird. This way, the chances of your bird getting poisoned would be minimized.

When feeding your birds, you should stay away from a few items. These include chocolate, coffee, and avocado. These food items are very dangerous for birds when taken in. There have even been cases when a bird would die just minutes after consuming such food items! Thus, you better keep these items away from your bird’s reach. The freshest of fresh foods should be fed to your birds, nothing else.