That is just a fancy way of saying: I save the dirty water from the canary water tubes to use on my houseplants.
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| Canary grass growing with an amaryllis bulb. Note the scrap of newspaper.... it must have been in the canary water! |
Our home uses well water and I have read warnings about using a water high in Total Dissolved Solids for poultry. Canaries drink a surprisingly large amount of water, considering how small they are.
So, I decided to go to the extra expense of buying 'good' water for my birds. The local grocery has a 'do it yourself' kiosk where I refill 5 gallon jugs.
I don't have to say it: my whole room full of birds use a LOT of water!!! It takes 2 1/2 quarts of water to refill all the tube waterers for all the cages... and this is a time of year I only have adult birds! I shudder to think how much water I will be using mid-summer when the chicks are all grown up!
I recommend emptying and refilling the water containers every day.
But, at the moment, I am skipping a day and refilling approx 3 times a week. IF you don't dump out 'old' water every day, I recommend cleaning the waterers at least once a week. In this busy season, I am glad I have a second set of water tubes.... and once or twice a week, I simply put up a clean waterer.
There are the birds that must wash their food... and their water containers always have bits of dried fruits, pellets, etc. Other birds keep their water tubes so clean, they would not need changing for several weeks!
However, I still recommend, as time allows, dumping out 'used' water and refilling with fresh water every day.
This leads to the RECYCLING!I save the 'used' water to water my houseplants.
Since the well water is also not suitable for plants, I either save rainwater or buy water for them!
Saving the bird water for use on the plants gives me twice the use for that expensive bottled water!
