Pet bird owners - best dishes to use?

In My Humble Opinion
1

I’ve had pet birds for a long time but never found a dish I really like that is easy to clean and will keep the bird from fouling its own water. I tend to prefer round stainless steel dishes but only have two birds that I have switched over to these, the other two are a little harder to change due to the nature of their cages. I like how easy they are to clean and that they are less likely to get gnawed on by the birds. However the one big problem I have is the birds foul their water so quickly no matter the type of dish, they are either perching on the dishes and pooping in them or they are taking their food over to the water and dropping it in. I’ve though about trying drip waterers (like those for gerbils and the like) in addition to the water dish so they can always have fresh water but a pet store employee didn’t think that birds would be able to drink from them. Those covered crocks I see might keep them from perching on them but I don’t think it would keep them from dropping stuff in them. This seems to be a Quaker trait, when I had cockatiels they kept their water cleaner.

So do you have any recommendations for good dishes or a waterer that birds will use but can’t get fouled by them?

Thanks.

2

That pet store employee is taking nonsense. I’ve used a water bottle with my Sun Conure for years, and she drinks from it just fine. Lixit makes a bird water bottle with a red-colored ball tip which is designed to catch your bird’s attention; first they play with it, then, when they discover that pushing on the red tip causes water to drip out, they figure out they can drink from it. I recommend giving the Lixit bottle a try. (Keep some water in a dish as well for the first few days, until you see your birds using the bottle and know they have figured the mechanism out.) It’s much more sanitary than any dish!

3

Those drip-ball ones are absolutely perfect for finches, I’ve found. Definitely give it a try with your birds…they’ll get used to it after a while.

But still give them a dish every now and then so they can enjoy a bath!

4

My green-cheek conure goes nuts over the red ball on his Lixit drip dispenser, and he drinks from it just fine.

If you leave a bird a pool of water in its cage, sooner or later it’s going to bathe in it.

5

Agree that most birds can figure out the ball waterers without too much trouble. My lovebirds recently decided to reproduce, and their resultant offspring has this in his cage, which he likes a lot. The only reason he doesn’t have a ball waterer is because the small-animal cage I kept him in during his impressionable first weeks had a waterer that was very similar to the silo, and since he’s not shown any tendency to poo or drop things in it, I kept the silo for continuity.

6

My lovie hasn’t figured out the lixit bottle yet, but she doesn’t foul her dish very often. But yes, they can learn to drink from a bottle.

7

Thanks, I did have a drip bottle in with a Quaker a while ago but somehow when I moved things around I lost it. I was never sure if they drank from it though but I didn’t see why they wouldn’t. I don’t always believe pet shop employees but I thought I’d check into it more before buying a bunch of bottles for the birds and I will definitely get the ones for birds everyone has mentioned.

I fully intend to leave them an open water dish as well. I just want them to have another source of fresh water because I have no idea how quickly they foul up their dish.

Thanks everyone.