Keeping large numbers of birds has always been a task with concerns about hygiene. Now with the changes in climate and new viruses moving around the world at scary speeds, it is an even more important part of caring for captive birds.

Having said that I feel very strongly that one can also over do things. Recently I was trying to work with someone who wanted outside enclosures to be hospital clean, or at least to aim for it. I actually feel this is very bad for the birds because I think what it does is remove their ability to deal with diseases that will without doubt come their way, whilst they are living outside.

I think there is a happy medium, where the birds live a fairly natural life and are able to cope with the normal run of the mill problems that affect many living things in their daily life, but are kept at a good level of cleanliness. I think there is an absolute parallel with what is happening to humans today. The more we try to keep children away from anything that might affect them and clean to the point of ridiculousness, the less we allow them to build up a natural immunity to life's infections and problems.

When we were children I can remember that we frequently used to get mosquito larvae out of the taps, and on one occasion a live tadpole! And yet I rarely get ill and even more rarely get stomach infections. It is a proven fact that children brought up with animals in the house are less likely to develop allergies. And to make a final point, my Grandmother always told us that we should eat a peck of dirt before we die. Looking up a peck is bloody difficult because a peck is, I think, a measurement of volume and therefore it depends on what you are measuring as to what it weighs. But I am told it is 9 litres or 56 lbs, but I have to say I am not sure about that, what I do know is that, it's a lot of dirt!!!

So with that in mind, keeping captive birds and their housing clean is really important, but for more than one reason is it best not to go over the top when birds are in enclosures. Incidentally one of the other reasons is to reduce the stress caused by constantly going in and out with untrained birds. I also believe that there is a huge amount we do not know about stress, and we have much to learn so wherever possible avoid causing it.

I have in the last four years moved the bulk of my collection, 189 birds, from the UK to the US, supposedly to merge with another group in South Carolina and start the definitive bird

of prey centre. Sadly it failed, and so I was forced to move the collection back from the US to the UK. Both of these moves were incredibly stressful for the birds (and me!).

We used F10 (F10SC Veterinary Disinfectant) for much of the travel arrangements. The transit boxes, were the same ones used for both trips, and indeed we keep enough boxes in each barn corridor to safely box the birds in emergencies. These boxes were cleaned and then sprayed with F10 prior to boxing up the birds, and we clean them before and after every use.

Travelling boxes

Unloading at the airport