FINCHforum

well long ago i decided that i wanted an outdoor aviary, but time and money were two heavy factors in it not becoming a reality. i recently found the time... and discovered that by recycling as much as possible i could actual make this all a reality for a relatively small expense. the first three pictures are of my yard prior to construction.. the shed floor was rotted out as the previous owner of the house had filled the uyard so the floor and runners were buried in twelve inches of dirt along with the sun deck, which after 20 years had just rotted away. the deck was 20x20 and was cut back to 12x20. recycling what was good. and only buying new treated facia board. and the shed was torn down and rebuilt in a different location. reusing all but the floor... even the cedar siding was recycled.



the second set of photos is where i am at now..
i wanted to be able to deconstruct the aviary in case i had to sell ever, as an aviary would only appeal to a few buyers.. so i chose to build an arbor as the main frame which will have framed cage attached to it. easy to take down if needed, the brick for its floor was collected for free. which is a huge savings. the arbor measures 10x6. the shed is 12x5 the inside caged area is 6x5 the will be a wash station inside as well as controls for the lights and heating. i still have a long ways to go with insulating the room, and boarding it. i am hopeful to have it all finished and the yard levelled and seeded by months end.. so the birds can enjoy at least 3 months of nice weather before the cold sets in.





alot of my inspiration came from poohbears aviary. his climate is similar to ours in canada. and i had asked him a few questions regarding his. his answers were of great help.
as i progress further i will post more pics of the progress. feedback is more than welcome. and thanks for taking the time to read this!

Looks like it's well on it's way!
Can't wait to see more pictures

Great beginnings!

Wow!!! Great expectations for what is to follow!! Thanks for sharing this wonderful journey.

Looking forward to seeing more updates

Wow that is going to look great can't wait to see the finished product.

This is exciting! I wish I could build one. hope it all goes well its looking good!

Man after my own heart... Best thing I ever bought was a bench saw.The amount of scrap timber I've cut down into useable sizes is unbelievable.Rubbish skips round here have supplied me with tons of timber..
My next project is to make proper shutters for the aviary for winter...it would be nice on the better sunny winter days to be able to simply remove one or two...when the big sheet is wrapped round this isn't possible...it will look better too.

By the way,if you think your garden looks a mess...I've got to sort out this lot...I could grow weeds for England.

Poohbear, please explain the shudders? I was hoping that in winter I could tarp with heavy clear vinyl like a knock up greenhouse. But this intrigues me... Is your outdoor section solar heated in the winter? Or do you supply electric heat?

Love the typo...'Shudders'...

I used a large sheet too,but it can't be taken down easy.I want to make individual panels to fit the uprights.Flat plastic panels cost a bomb,but plastic corrugated sheeting is cheap enough...Not as good as glass of course when it comes to seeing the birds.But at least it will keep the draughts and wind out.
Cold winters days I don't spend much time outside gazing at the birds anyway.The outside section isn't heated...only the shed part.I reduce the size of the pop hole between the two and leave it to the birds to go inside if they want.
Solar heating?...Yeah,it's that big orange ball in the sky... Don't see much of that in winter here.

poohbear,
thanks again for all the info... things are coming along quite slowly... but still steadily... its hard to get friends to help out these days and while trying to lift my roof up (by myself) i dislocated my shoulder. so the last week and a half have been non productive. i'm back at it today. the roof is up and papered. and i am putting the facia board on this morning. there is not a lot to do building wise now its just a matter of having available funds to build the screens and frames. metal on the roof and plywood for the walls.
i will post more pictures soon.

Oh Kyle! Sorry about your shoulder! Makes my shoulder hurt reading about it I hope you post your aviary in the 'finch information center' under "Aviaries". I'd love to read all about how you're installing heaters, water, winter housing etc. I'm really happy you are making your dream come true!

i would love to post it over there. but i see two problems,
1. i have no idea what my plan is. in fact i dont have a plan. the idea was to reuse as much as i could and salvage anything i could find. so i have just been building with what i have and buying as little as possible. i dont have drawings for it... but i do have a number of pictures documenting the process.

2. all lighting, heating and anything else will probably be hand made and not being a certified electrician i certainly wouldn't want others to hurt themselves following in my footsteps. i have an extensive background in building and electrical applications therefore the risk of injury is low on my behalf.

but.... i suppose if i dont explain those parts it would be fine. but those are the expensive parts... which would be what i'd mostly want to share as they are the ones that will cut costs dramatically.


to give you an idea of how budget this aviary is. my lock on the doors are hand made wooden latches which i carved.. because a deadbolt or latch bolt was 15bucks.


i will say this.. on ebay for 12 bucks you can buy a digital thermostat. model is STC 1000. it controls heating and cooling extremely accurately (was using it for my incubator) this is what i plan to use for my heating and venting. 12v dc exhaust fans will be mounted to the sofit vents, so when the temp gets to hot in summer it will kick in and start blasting out hot air and pulling in fresh air.. when to cold. it will start heating. it will however be a lot of wiring. and i plan on having a backup system so in case of power failure it will switch to battery and give me about twelve hours to find a solution.

Very neat project and I love the sensible way you are going about building it. Why spend the money if you don't a) have it or b) have to?

Thanks for sharing. I look forward to updates.

Well, currently this project is at a stand still. I cannot decide what to do for the aviary bottom in the outdoor section, my options are, a: concrete. B: crushed rock. c: dirt.

The reason i am having trouble deciding is because all have pro's and cons. Both crushed rock and soil would look natural, but will predators come up through the bottom? the floor is framed in with 2x6 so it would be filled 6 inches deep with rock or soil.

Concrete on the other hand will stop predators, and is easy to clean, but is also highly costly... Which is something I was trying to avoid, the whole point of this project was to see how far I could stretch a buck.

Another solution would be to floor it like a patio deck, which is something I just now though of.

So help me out guys, or this will never get finished. And you'll never see more pics of it