A bedroom is always inappropriate for a birdcage if you’re immunocompromised, unwilling to clean the room regularly, or the bird requires constant interaction.
The presence of feathers, dander, and waste can trigger allergic reactions while you sleep, and some birds feel isolated and lonely if their human family doesn’t surround them.
Sleeping in the same room as a bird can also prevent restful sleep for the bird and its owner.
Advantages of Keeping Birds in a Bedroom
There are some benefits to housing a bird in a bedroom, but the pros outnumber the cons. If you wish to sleep in the same room as a pet bird, here are the advantages:
Peace and Privacy
Too much noise can agitate a companion bird, and a bedroom is less likely to be overstimulating.
It’ll be less of a concern for your bird to be subjected to the general family commotion, such as raised voices and TVs, traffic outside a window, and other noise.
If you work from home and need to concentrate or hold meetings, you won’t need to compete with the sound of a bird tweeting, singing, screeching, or saying anything inappropriate.
Easy to Birdproof
Bedrooms are usually smaller than shared living spaces, so they’ll be easy to birdproof. This will help you rest easier in the unlikely event your bird escapes its cage.
A bedroom could be considered birdproof for the following reasons.
- Windows and doors can be closed when the bedroom is not in use.
- The noise of human interaction will be minimized while you and your family are downstairs.
- Dangerous or toxic food will not be within easy reach.
- Direct heat sources, such as stoves and fireplaces, won’t be present.
You’ll still need to take some precautions, ensuring that electrical cables can’t be chewed through and removing anything toxic, like scented candles..
Disadvantages of Keeping Birds in a Bedroom
There are more problems with choosing to house a bird in your bedroom than rewards, including:
Lack of Social Interaction
Companion birds are typically social and relish time spent with their human family.
According to Anthrozoös, the ability to interact with owners regularly will bolster the health of an avian companion, which can make a bedroom problematic for a bird.
Unless you work from home, within the bedroom, your bird will rarely get to see you. This can make companion birds, especially intelligent species like parrots, increasingly isolated, lonely, and depressed.
Boredom is detrimental to birds – it frequently leads to stress-induced feather plucking and an increasingly aggressive temperament. Smaller birds that live in bonded pairs or groups will fare a little better but still need human interaction.
If you want to keep your pet bird in a bedroom, ensure you visit regularly and provide opportunities for outside-the-cage exercise. The cage itself will also need enrichment to keep a bird amused.
Disturbed Sleep
Sharing a bedroom with a bird, or especially multiple birds will likely impact your ability to sleep.
If your bird starts to talk, sing, or squawk, you’ll be roused from sleep at once. This could happen multiple times over an evening or very early in the morning.
You could get around this by wearing earplugs or getting a white noise machine that leaves you indifferent to external noise. Alas, your presence may still prevent your bird from sleeping.
Companion birds, notably larger species such as parrots, need 12 hours of sleep each night. If you keep your pets awake, they’ll be cranky and belligerent in the morning.
A prolonged lack of sleep can make birds unwell and confuse breeding cycles.
Do Bird Cages Need to be Covered at Night?
Their cage will need to be covered overnight regardless of where birds sleep.
This doesn’t make a bedroom any more suitable as a nocturnal location. Covering a cage means you can use a lamp at night, but it doesn’t block noise for your bird.
While your bird’s cage is covered, it can hear but not see. This will potentially make a bird increasingly anxious overnight, resulting in disturbances.
Attempting to watch TV in bed or even unavoidable sounds like snoring can pose significant problems.
Differing Temperature Needs
Humans and companion birds will likely have different temperature preferences, especially overnight, when trying to sleep. Birds flourish most at temperatures between 65OF and 80OF; humans sleep better at a cooler ambient temperature, closer to 60OF.
You can reach a compromise, as birds can tolerate lower temperatures, and humans can theoretically sleep when it’s warmer. Alas, neither party will be comfortable with such an arrangement.
Potential Allergens
If you share your bedroom with pets, you need to be certain that you won’t suffer any allergic reaction to their presence.
Zoonoses and Public Health confirms that the presence of animals can trigger skin inflammation, respiratory issues, and gastrointestinal upsets.
Companion birds can be particularly problematic if you have suspected allergies.
Feathers and Dander
Birds shed dead skin, known as dander. Most birds will also shed feathers at least once a year.
The feathers closest to a bird’s skin also produce a fine white powder, known colloquially as bird dust. The answer to the question, “is bird dust bad for you” is an unqualified yes, especially if you have allergies.
Bird dust contains bacteria that can be harmful if breathed in. This means that you must never keep a bird’s cage directly above or beside your bed, where you’ll take in deep lungfuls of dust while sleeping.
Some birds have what are known as powder-down feathers, which means they create higher levels of dust than others and are most dangerous to those with allergies.
Based on the species, decide if a bird is safe to live in your bedroom.
| Most Dusty Birds | Least Dusty Birds |
| African Greys | Conures |
| Cockatiels | Budgies |
| Cockatoos | Macaws |
| Amazon Parrots | Quaker Parrots |
You can still keep a bird if you struggle with dust, but it’s inadvisable to sleep in the same room. Place your bird in a larger space where the dust is less likely to settle and cause respiratory concerns.
Urine and Excrement
Some birds eliminate as often as every 15-20 minutes. You can toilet train companion birds, but even if you’re successful, their waste will linger until you get around to cleaning it.
Your first concern will likely be, “is bird waste toxic?” It can be. Wild bird droppings often contain the bacteria Chlamydia psittaci, exposure to which can lead to the respiratory disease psittacosis.
Eurosurveillance stated that psittacosis is highly contagious and dangerous to anybody with compromised immunity or compromised lungs.
Smell
To avoid uncomfortable lingering odors in your bedroom, you must keep your bird and its living space clean. Ways to achieve this include:
- Bathing your birds periodically.
- Spot-cleaning a cage at least once a day.
- Removing any uneaten food at once.
- Regularly changing water.
Never open windows to air out the smell in a room, as this creates a safety risk for birds that escape. Never use canned air fresheners to mask an odor, as aerosols are toxic to birds.
Mess
Any birds that live in your bedroom will primarily be confined to a cage.
In theory, they’ll have limited opportunities to create a mess. Alas, the answer to the question, “are birds messy?” remains yes if you’re not vigilant about cleaning.
Birds will allow dust out of their cage and potentially drop uneaten food on the floor. In addition to potential staining, this will attract mice, spiders, and other unwelcome visitors to a bedroom.
So, are birds dirty animals? It would be harsh to label them as such. However, you must step up your cleaning regime if you wish to share a bedroom with avian family members.
Where Should a Bird Cage be Kept in the Bedroom?
If you are adamant that you can manage the risks and warnings surrounding keeping birds in the bedroom, follow these steps for the best chance of a harmonious living arrangement:
- Hang the cage in a corner, not too close to a window or noise source (such as a TV or radio.)
- Don’t hang the cage directly over your bed.
- Ensure the birdcage is placed somewhere that could be considered the bird’s territory.
- Keep a clear route out of the cage when the bird leaves to exercise, ensuring it will not risk injury by flying straight into a light fixture or ceiling fan.
- Provide access to clean the bird cage and surrounding area without struggle.
Overall, birds shouldn’t be kept in a bedroom. Only sleep in the same room as birds if you’re certain it is safe and have no other realistic options.
