FINCHforum

Hello everyone, I have this craaaazy idea:
I was inspired from some pics of outdoor aviary with built in pond, sometimes it has fish living in it.
And from my current experience maintaining an aviary with floor bottom, its annoying when you have to clean it up, due to bird droppings usually become sticky thus requires lots of scrubbing... it gets even more annoying if a bird poop on you when you're crouching down cleaning.
SO! why not have a watery bottom for an aviary??

Here's the plan:
Its basically a pond with walls or wire on its borders...
It will have aquatic plants that love to consume waste product, some of the plants may even grow out of the water in the form of trees (for ex. lucky bamboo or dracaena) for perching.
There will be small fish, shrimps, and snails that can eat decomposing stuffs, plus they're hardy species...
Birds (my choice are java finch) will be living above the water, their feeding station perched above water securely, but should they want to drink or bathe they can land on the shallow area.

IF the water seems hazardous because of bird's wastes, I will remove the shallow area, install a fountain with excellent filter system and UV sterilizer (it kills harmful bacteria) so the finches will prefer that fountain than the deeper (but not deep enough) pond...

I chose Java finch because they're super hardy, does not eat plants, and they're native to Indonesia where I live so this warm outdoor climate of mine is what they've evolved to...
I'm also a fish person, I know aquatic plants that absorbs nutrients fast, and aquatic faunas that are also disease resilient, and is often used for cleaning up (if you're a fish person you'll understand!)
Of course, like I said, the aviary is outdoor, receives natural sunlight, and will not be too humid.
so what do you think?

I attach a sketch to illustrate my point:

mondo
I'm not sure, but I think if the finches are ones that do not forage on the ground, you'd be alright. I'd give them some more land for foraging. What about nesting? If babies fledge, they could drown in the water. Unless, the nests are on the land portion and there is plenty of room for them to flutter down without landing in the water. I lost a fledge once because he must've fledge right into a water dish, about 1 1/2 inches deep. He drowned. So, be careful with a water setup without adequate land areas etc.

Some times finches and other birds get panic attacks (night frights) during the night and end up on cage floor. So they could easily drown if they have water bottom.

My biggest concern would be drowning.

It's a neat idea, and might work but it would take very careful planning. I would be most concerned with the fact that the birds could drown. We had a finch get out at the pet store I managed and couldn't find her. The next morning she had drowned in the koi pond back in the fish department.

Not sure if you're familiar with ponds or aquariums, but that's one more thing you'd need to maintain. If the water quality gets out of whack then the fish, invertebrates, and even plants could die and cause an even bigger problem.

It is a nice idea on paper, but I'd be worried like the others have mentioned with regards to drowning. I'd also worry about the health of all things. Additional water to any environment, especially a nice warm one like yours, ups the humidity allowing mould and bacterial optimal growth.

I have a very wet aviary in winter. It only takes 2 minutes before the birds are drenched and shivering (I have colder weather than you). It only takes about 40 minutes of them being soak to death. Birds are particularly stupid at night. If they fly out into the rain and get soaked in a storm I've had them die too. I'd be extremely worried about fledglings as they don't have the flight ability etc when they first come out.
Generally speaking large volumes of water and birds are not a good combo unless you have ducks.

If you want to make your cleaning a bit easier, why not have a solid bottom. Wash it down every other day with a garden hose and you won't have a poop build up. Alternatively you can have a solid bottom and then cover it with a very dry course sand / fine dry grass / wood mulch. That way the substrate will soak up any moisture the poop delivers and you can just sweep up the droppings and / substrate once a week.

monotwine wrote: If you want to make your cleaning a bit easier, why not have a solid bottom. Wash it down every other day with a garden hose and you won't have a poop build up. Alternatively you can have a solid bottom and then cover it with a very dry course sand / fine dry grass / wood mulch. That way the substrate will soak up any moisture the poop delivers and you can just sweep up the droppings and / substrate once a week.

WOW that's a very neat idea! So is that how people keep their aviary clean?

I understand all of you people's concerns, drowning may be a hazard especially to the fledgling and chicks... and also that part about bacteria developing faster... I guess there's a reason why people never done my idea *sigh*

I would like to take this opportunity to ask: do bird droppings decompose on fertile soil (where I plant my plants)? is there a fast way to decomposing them? and how good are they for plant growth?
thanks

How many birds you keep in an aviary kind of determines how you clean in my opinion.
Less birds = less mess and therefore you can do things like have them in a planted aviary where you rarely clean up and only spray down or let natural processes of decomposition take place.

If you keep many birds they make too much mess for nature to keep up with, that is when we need to step in to clean in order to provide a healthy clean environment for the birds.

I have a dirt floor currently (just natural sand). I sweep once a week to take out the seed chaff and dried poop. Once in a while I hose the aviary, plants and perches etc down to reduce the mess. I wet everything down, then wait a bit for it to rehydrate and then spray it all off. Comes off faster that way. Then I spray a disinfectant that soaks into the soil too. Quite a mission.

The risk I run is that every time I wet the place down I can allow for non-healthy bacteria or Coccidiosis to flourish too.
Currently I am trying to change my set-up to a solid / dry aviary floor because I have picked up too many health issues over the last two years with moist and wet conditions.

However all my bird poop sweepings go into my compost heap. I then use that to add to my garden.

By the way I loved your drawing of your design. Thinking about it the only way you could do it is to use a wire grid over the pond so the birds don't come into contact with water, i.e. suspended cage over a pond.
However I think in all practicality it would be nicer to have an aviary and a pond that you could enjoy both for what they are individually.

monotwine wrote: However all my bird poop sweepings go into my compost heap. I then use that to add to my garden.

NEAT! their poop can finally contribute to something ^^

monotwine wrote: How many birds you keep in an aviary kind of determines how you clean in my opinion.
Less birds = less mess and therefore you can do things like have them in a planted aviary where you rarely clean up and only spray down or let natural processes of decomposition take place.

If you keep many birds they make too much mess for nature to keep up with, that is when we need to step in to clean in order to provide a healthy clean environment for the birds.

I have a dirt floor currently (just natural sand). I sweep once a week to take out the seed chaff and dried poop. Once in a while I hose the aviary, plants and perches etc down to reduce the mess. I wet everything down, then wait a bit for it to rehydrate and then spray it all off. Comes off faster that way. Then I spray a disinfectant that soaks into the soil too. Quite a mission.

The risk I run is that every time I wet the place down I can allow for non-healthy bacteria or Coccidiosis to flourish too.
Currently I am trying to change my set-up to a solid / dry aviary floor because I have picked up too many health issues over the last two years with moist and wet conditions.

*sigh* yeah... It would be nice to make our maintenance routine simpler and reduce as much hazard as possible ^_^

I would be worried that too much poop hitting the water would contribute to eutrophication. Algae growth and starving of oxygen.

I have no idea how much nitrogenous waste is inside bird crap.

Fantastic idea, keep us posted.

I've seen aviaries with ponds, so I think it could work.

I'd also make little rock piles throughout the pond for perching areas. (And they'd serve as additional places where they could walk out of the water if required to reduce the drowning risk.)

I'd make sure the nesting areas are far from the water.

My worry would be that the pond turns into a disgusting pool of icky-ness. So you'd need just the right filtration.

My neighbor has chicken wire just below the surface of his pond to keep the koi safe from the stray cats. Something like that would work perfectly for birds.

That's one heck of a "sketch" by the way. Beautiful!

I think it sounds like a good idea. But waaay too much tRoUbLe.
I've seen something like it at a zoo.
Great drawing