Santa Clara Bird Club  PO Box 3466 Santa Clara, CA. 95055-3466

Santa Clara Valley Canary & Exotic Bird Club, founded in 1958

Sanitizing water bottles and other containers for birds.

By Julien Mercier

Providing clean water free of harmful germs is important for keeping our birds healthy. Yet, water gets easily contaminated with droppings and food particles and harmful microbes quickly grow in this environment. Rinsing off water bottles and bird baths just provides a temporary solution, as microbes remain on the plastic or glass surface, ready to grow again. In the worst condition, even algae will start growing in the containers.

Talking to bird and pet shop owners, I have heard of various ways of cleaning water bottles and sanitizing them to minimize microbial contamination. Some told me that they soak plastic bottles overnight (which is overkill) in concentrated bleach (also overkill). While bleach is a great antimicrobial, soaking bottles in bleach at high concentration or for extended period will damage the plastic and seriously reduce its useful lifespan. Other pet owners told me they soak their bottles in hot water, again with the likely consequence of ruining the plastic, while often providing inadequate sanitation.  For several years, I previously used dilute vinegar for cleaning my bottles; it has the advantage of being easy to rinse off plastic (unlike dish soap), non-toxic and mildly germicidal. Yet, especially in hot weather, the bottles fouled rapidly and a bacterial film would still develop within days.

                  At work, I use bleach (sodium hypochlorite) regularly to sanitize materials in the laboratory. The great thing about sodium hypochlorite is that it acts quickly and kills microbes at a low concentration, in the part per million range. It is also easy to rinse off. Why not try this for my birds’ containers? Now, once a week, I soak all my bottles and baths for a couple minutes in very dilute bleach (I use a capful of household bleach in about two quarts of water) and then rinse them well with water. The treatment is safe and effective; the bottles stay fresh for days and I never see microbial film developing anymore. This is especially great for inverted water bottles that I leave for a full week in the cage before sanitizing and refilling them again. It also reduces my worries about my birds getting sick from drinking unhealthy water. Although this is simple, most bird books do not provide clear directives on how to do this and there are a lot of misconceptions about antimicrobial treatments.   

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