Is It Safe To Kiss Your Pet Bird? The Do's And Don'ts of Showing Affection Towards Your Feathered Friend

Pet birds are often friendly and silly.

Which... 

Causes us to be very fond of them.

And If cat owners dream about licking their cats, then wanting to kiss your bird isn’t uncommon.

You may ask: 

Is it okay to kiss your bird on the top of their beak or on their head?

Yes, it surely is. Kissing or giving your bird a quick peck won’t do any harm, and it surely is delightful to show affection towards them.

But is it safe to kiss your bird on its mouth or inside? 

Definitely not!

You may be thinking it is okay to kiss your bird if you provide them proper hygiene and make sure your mouth is clean. Not quite. No matter how clean you both are, it’s just not safe to provide contact between your mouth and theirs. 

By kissing your bird, you’ll be transferring substances like saliva or lip products that were left on your lips to them. A human being’s saliva carries thousands of different bacteria that birds don’t have, and when these bacteria enter their mouth, their immune system won’t be able to fight it.

Lip products such as lipstick or lip balms contain chemicals that are not safe for them. Hence, your bird will get very sick, or worse, die. And aside from harming your bird, it could mean harm to you, too.

Your pet bird biting your lip isn’t the worst case here, they can infect you with Psittacosis.

Psittacosis is a fever-like cold that can make you sick or cause death and there’s a high chance that your bird has this disease or has just been infected with it.

Remember that there’s no problem in giving them a quick peck in certain places and that you can show affection towards them in lots of other ways, but just not the things I mentioned earlier that you shouldn’t do. ;)