If you have been following our blog, then you know that our summer intern, Sarah, wrote a very entertaining blog on cleaning our mews, so maybe I should really title this entry as, “Squeaky Clean (and a little soggy)” [Sarah’s title] Part II. This will be an extension of Sarah’s blog.
Being a bird handler is not all fun and games. We didn’t sign up just to stand around with a bird on our arm, while telling people all kinds of interesting things about them. No, we also signed up to clean each of the mews (rooms) that the birds live in, thus there is also work to do. The birds need to be cared for, and one of the important tasks is to be sure that each of the birds live in a clean, healthy environment.
Cleaning the bird’s mews reminds me a little of this quote from Phyllis Diller, “Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing up is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.” As an example, one morning I spent a long time picking up feathers in Suli’s mew, but when I came back later to move her into her box before further cleaning, I found that she had spread more feathers about for me to pick up. I scrubbed Isham’s walls one day, only to have him repaint a spot the instant I returned him to his mew.
There are a few cleaning tasks we do on a daily basis. If Haya had a chick or quail for dinner the night before, the platform that she eats on will need to have the plucked feathers cleaned off of it.
Hanging next to each bird’s door is a daily log. Usually the first person who comes in for the day will check for a number of things that are then written on each bird’s daily log.
One of these jobs is to pick up the pellets the birds may have spit up and note the number found, if any, on each bird’s log. I thought for many years that only owls regurgitated undigested food in the form of a pellet, but actually there are a number of birds that do this. All of our birds spit up (cast) pellets. Sometimes it is difficult to find Suli’s as our turkey vulture likes to turn hers into toys, and may have shredded them just for the fun of it. Teasdale, our great-horned owl, only digests about 50 percent of the fur, feathers, and bones of the critters he eats. For this reason owl pellets are interesting to dissect, as they may contain complete skulls and other bones, and therefore can be used for educational activities. Our remaining birds digest more of the bone material, so their pellets are mostly fur or feathers. These we throw away.
We also look to see what, if anything, is remaining from the previous night’s dinner and pick up any scraps; again noting on their sheet what, if anything, was left. We then take the time to pick up feathers that may have been shed, and place them in a box in our work room. It is against the law to own the feathers of most birds. Under the Migratory Bird Treaty, all migratory birds are protected, and it is against the law to own any part of most birds, including a single feather. All species, except house sparrows, pigeons, common starlings, and non-migratory game birds are included in this protection. We collect our feathers and send them to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which then issues permits to qualified applicants for feathers; i.e. Native Americans who use feathers for religious and cultural purposes.
Depending on the time of the year we do a much more thorough mews cleaning either once or twice a week. We clean twice a week in the summer, because such things as flies and ants can be a problem. In the winter, a weekly thorough cleaning is all that is needed. On our complete cleaning days we add the scrub down. Isham paints his walls, lifting his tail and slicing (shooting his waste out behind him). OK…take a sponge and scrub the art work off the walls. Sometimes there is also art work on Haya’s walls. Teasdale, not so much. He has no use for art work and tends to poop on the gravel below him. Suli, however, simply poops/pees down her legs. Ooooo disgusting! Well, not really. In the wild this behavior is beneficial to vultures and it serves two purposes. Since vultures eat dead animals, they spend a lot of time standing on decomposing flesh that is full of bacteria. The uric acid in their “urine” kills bacteria that may be on their legs. Secondly, the liquid running down their legs helps them to cool off.
We use a hose on our complete cleaning days to not only spray and scrub the walls where the birds have decorated them with white, but also to spray the astroturf platform perch areas and wash down the gravel that covers each birds floor.
Once the floor has been cleaned, we rake the gravel to smooth it out and to cover the cement edging along each wall.
Cleaning also includes emptying the water dishes and scrubbing those out. There is a little extra to do in Suli’s room, as she has a Suli-sized dog, err “vulture house,” which she sleeps in, and this also needs to be cleaned inside and out.–
Except for Teasdale, our birds would rather not be present while their rooms are being cleaned. When the weather is warm enough, Hayabusa, Isham, and Suli are tied out in our weathering yard where they can enjoy the fresh air and soak up the sun.

When it is too cold, the birds are placed in their travel boxes. Teasdale, doesn’t feel safe outside. There is no tree to hide in, he has nothing over his head other than open sky, and he simply doesn’t like it. He will usually sit on the ground rather than on his outside perch and sometimes will even lay down, flattening himself as much as possible in the grass, hoping that he will be harder to see in that position. On the other hand, in the summer, spending time in his box is even worse, as it simply makes him hotter than he already is, wearing his down coat and boots, as he does all year long. It is surprising to me, however, that he doesn’t seem to mind the hose and the splashing water. Of course he watches us closely, and gives us a disapproving look, but then what can you expect? This is his room, and he sees no real need for all that water being sprayed all around. He is probably saying to himself, “Humans are such silly, bothersome things.”
Questions from visitors:
Where do the birds live?
Our birds live in a little building called a mews. This is similar to a small barn with individual stalls. Each bird has at least one window and a variety of perches and platforms to spend time on. This building is located off the sculpture garden that we hold our summer programs in, behind a locked fence. I have been asked if the public can see the birds there. The answer is no, as the birds need their rest time and their privacy during these down times is important to them.