Would You Use A Car Seat Perch?

During a recent conversation with the owner of the bird store where I got my birds, it came up that there was a need for a car-seat perch. However, it's only one person's opinion. I'm interested in knowing if other people would have a genuine interest in using one. Whether or not you think you would buy and use one now, if you WERE to buy one what three things would most influence your decision to purchase one car-perch over another?

I checked "price," "versatility," and "ability to buckle." If the price was low enough the versatility I could give or take, but if I'm paying enough for it I want to be able to use it elsewhere, too.

This is what Yoshi's breeder gives to each new parent of their babies and, because I didn't have a travel cage, what I brought him home with...


Link to its webpage

It's not MEANT to be a car seat, they just say it can be used as one. After driving him home with it, these are my thoughts:

• Because of the angle of most seats, the perch is angled upwards towards the front of the car. May just be my humanness, but I would imagine that getting annoying on any substantial drive
• Since it was on an angle, the poop kind of slid toward the back. There's a little lip on the base of their perches and we had paper towels bunched up on the edge just in case, but it would need a good poop-containment mechanism
• Nothing to contain the bird in even of an accident. Actually, there's really not even anything to catch the bird if it goes off-balance.

It's a great table perch and is really well put together, but I don't ever plan on using it as a car-seat again. It's just too cumbersome for what it's worth. I'll put a towel over the headrest of the passenger's seat and let him sit there.

Now that's just for around town, in a few weeks he'll be traveling on a 13 hour car ride with us to PA to visit home. What I would LOVE to have is one of these...


Found this on Amazon

This is just an example because I know there are a lot of other styles and brands. This one, though, can be used as a backpack and completely unzipped to clean. I don't have the money for it now, so he'll get a makeshift travel cage/box (which he'll probably only be in while I'M driving anyway). BUT, for long trips, I would feel even more comfortable with him in this than in a travel cage as far as safety.

**EDIT** For those of us with bigger babies


For larger parrots

I posted: No, Price, Versatility

Now we just use carriers since all our birds are small.

Back in the days of the 2s and CAG the car perches were just coming out. It was just more convenient to hold the bird or let it sit on the passenger headrest, passenger or passenger seat. I know some people cringe about a driver holding a bird, but I took mine everywhere with me so they were so used to car rides they'd just sit on my leg and look out the window. It would have been different if they were large birds that couldn't sit still. I probably would have put them in a travel cage then.

Biggest issue's always been large bird demolishing the vehicle one bite at a time, so a car perch I don't think would stop that. If that were a huge issue for me now, I'd put the bird in a carrier so it couldn't eat the car.

Our macaws perch on the seats themselves, but the little guys tend to stay in their cages.

I did design a perch that replaced the headsrest that's really easy to make, basically two pieces of threaded rod with a bracket that you pad with pipe insulation and wrap with hockey stick wrap. Works beautifully for all sizes. I don't have food bowls in car because I don't tend to bring them on overly long trips, but should the need arise, I am sure there would be an easy way to add one onto the rod with a bracket.

I haven't answer yet. LOL But! I would definitely say yes. Most of our families are still in LA, so we go down on weekend trips quite often. It would be nice to have something other than the little cage that he travels in now. I like the little backpack one, I just think that one seems like it would be a little...dark.

I've thought about making something like that for a while though, just to give me more piece of mind about safety

I voted: no.
There is absolutely no way for my budgies to stay still in a one place. Did you ever watch squirrel go up and down the tree? Make it 10 x faster and that's how I can imagine them
Chico is sitting on shoulder (or mine or my bf's) and since tiels are not that big, she would have that perch pretty high
And my future beauty No, not perch.

LyzGrace,
When I first time saw that backpack, I was absolutely in love in this!

Oh geez, can you imagine trying to get budgies to try and sit on a car perch? That's an accident waiting to happen!

I voted no. We buckle our pups up with their harnesses and chains on the child seat hooks - they won't go flying forward if we stop suddenly or crash.

The birds are treated similarly - their carriers are buckled up & they'll be as safe as we are if the car stops all of a sudden or crashes. To be free and on a perch...think of what happens if a bird goes into your windshield from the outside...I don't want that on the inside of our car.

Just my opinion and thoughts - no worries if others have differing views

I voted no. I think it is much safer to use a carrier buckled into the seat belt if the car is in motion. They can still fall off the perch and hit the carrier wall, but they won't wind up under the brake pedal or out the broken window. Now, if were traveling a long distance with my bird and I wanted to be able to have him out when we were stopped, or if I were camping in an RV or something like that, sure, it would be useful. I have seen perches made for this purpose in various catalogs.

I'm going to add a note on the physics. If the car stops suddenly from 70 mph, your bird is unfortunately going to hit the carrier wall just as hard as if you hit a (stationary or flying across the car) bird with the car at that speed. The bird has the same speed as the car and will carry the same momentum as if it were moving on its own at that speed. If the car stops... the force equals the change in momentum. Or to quote Sancho in Man of La Mancha "If the rock hits the pitcher or the pitcher hits the rock, it's going to be bad for the pitcher."

Be kind of nice if we could make carrier walls out of a defomable material that would absorb some of the impact (same theory as a helmet). Although, in thinking about that, the car will crush considerably in it's stopping, so the bird in the carrier will probably be somewhat spared, because the car itself will have absorbed a bunch of the impact before the carrier has slowed to zero.

Oh, and in the front seat... there's also the airbag to worry about.

Maybe I should read and comprehend before answering. LOL

I meant yes to the pictures that Lyz posted. LOL Not a perch, just a kind of backpack. LOL

I have used several perches in the car but have never tried the car seat type,I 've made perches that fit on the console between the seats and the shower perch mounted to the window, etc none of these were very successful.my problem was that the birds rarely stayed on the perch and roamed around the car chewing every thing in sight.The best solution seems to be the neck type perch that you wear around your neck.Of course the air bag is still an issue ,and you need to be sure you wear a seatbelt. I had Jake on a perch like this when i rolled my truck this spring on a snowy road and off into the ditch, she was fine and ended up perched on the upside down dash, above the water level, the air bag didn't deploy.I think that the best solution and the safest for your bird is the carrier seatbelted in the back seat,that being said Jake still rides on the neck perch almost every day.

henpecked wrote:

(...)The best solution seems to be the neck type perch that you wear around your neck.(...)

Hennpecked, can you share some photo of how it looks with us? And another question, you did it by yourself or bought it somewhere?

I make them myself very simple, i had pics on the other forum so i try to find them and print here.

I did it for you, but we still need your advice: Neck Perches by Henpecked