Bird Feeders and Drinkers: Which to Choose and Where to Place Them
Published by Planète Pets · managing editor: Clément Lacaille · how our guides are written
We think about them less than the cage or the toys, and yet: feeders and drinkers govern your birds’ daily hygiene. Badly chosen or badly placed, they encourage waste, fouled water and bacterial growth. Here is a quick tour of the options, tested and compared by Planète Pets.
Contents · 4 sections
Feeders: hopper, dish or corner mount
- The hopper feeder (3 to 10 €) dispenses seed as it is eaten. Practical, but beware the classic trap: empty husks pile up on top and hide the fact that the seed has run out. Empty and blow out the hopper every day.
- The open dish in stainless steel or ceramic (4 to 15 €) is the easiest to clean and suits pellets and the fresh vegetables covered in our budgie and canary diet guide perfectly.
- Swivel-mounted dishes, refilled from outside the cage, are invaluable for wary parrots or in a busy indoor aviary.
Drinkers: siphon or water bottle?
The siphon drinker (2 to 8 €), a small transparent reservoir with a water reserve, shields the water from droppings and debris. It is the standard for canaries and budgies. The ball-valve water bottle, rodent style, keeps the water very clean but not every bird takes to it: never remove the old system before you have seen the bird drink from the new one. Whichever formula you choose, the water is changed every day, reserve included, with a hot-water clean — algae and biofilm form quickly.
Placement, so often overlooked
Three simple rules:
- Never under a perch: droppings would fall straight into the food and water.
- At mid-height in the cage, reachable without acrobatics, including for an elderly bird.
- Keep feeder and drinker away from each other to make the bird move around — a free mini-enrichment that complements the foraging toys.
How many feeding stations?
When birds live together, provide at least one feeding and watering station per additional bird, spaced out across the cage: this defuses tension between dominant and subordinate birds. A bird that stops eating or drinking is an emergency: contact an avian vet promptly. To compare the models on the market, head to the bird accessories section.
An accessory from our shop for this use: Acrylic no-mess feeder for budgies (13 × 11 × 13 cm) (€33.90) · the whole shop
This guide is part of Planète Pets’s Birds universe. Our advice is general in nature: for any health concern, your veterinarian remains the only reference.
