My Flight Cage

For questions about finch enclosures (cages & aviaries).
Icearstorm
Weaning
Weaning
Posts: 1612
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 5:21 pm

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by Icearstorm » Mon Aug 13, 2018 2:35 pm

Changed from live plants to fake ones since I probably won't be able to frequently replace them anymore (now in apartment for college).

I got a new hexagonal cage. We sanded and painted it before noticing that the bars near the edges were spaced far enough apart for the birds to escape. Fortunately, window screen and zip ties seem to have fixed that. It looks crowded in the photo, but the plants are mainly across the back so they still have room to fly.
I just moved Summer, Floopy, and Morty to it, and while they are screaming a bit, they aren't as upset as I thought they would be. I'll put a nest box or cup in before too long, and will probably give them Macbeth's and Tacocat's next clutch to foster.
image.jpeg
I changed the inside of the flight cage quite a bit. The tarp has been replaced with a new one which is now held down with trim; this should make dirt much easier to remove from the edges. I put three dividers in the hopper feeder and put black oil sunflower on one side, canary seed on another, and white proso millet on the remaining two. There are now two main clusters of plants, and the branches are away from the sides so the ledges hopefully don't get as soiled. I also put the water dish in a new clay pot and propped it up on another pot a fake orchid was in; the cover will probably need re-engineering.
Macbeth and Tacocat are in it, and both of them got in the nest box within a couple of minutes. I think I'll block it off for a couple of weeks before I attempt to breed them.
image.jpeg

FinchLady
Wonder Wooer
Wonder Wooer
Posts: 323
Joined: Sun Jul 15, 2012 12:30 pm
Location: Southeast USA

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by FinchLady » Mon Aug 13, 2018 8:17 pm

Icearstorm: Love your flight aviary. Very, very nice setup...great ideas, too.

Dave
Sisal Slave
Sisal Slave
Posts: 564
Joined: Mon Dec 14, 2015 7:24 am
Location: Campbellsville, KY

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by Dave » Tue Aug 14, 2018 7:35 am

I found, eventually, that the branches get used a lot more if they are horizontal rather than vertical. Branches were laid side-to-side, resting on the permanent perches. This didn't impede flying, finches can zip through quite a bit of stuff without ever touching a thing.
Dave

Campbellsville, Kentucky, USA
Canaries

Icearstorm
Weaning
Weaning
Posts: 1612
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 5:21 pm

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by Icearstorm » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:47 pm

FinchLady
Thank you!

Icearstorm
Weaning
Weaning
Posts: 1612
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 5:21 pm

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by Icearstorm » Wed Aug 15, 2018 12:47 pm

Dave

It's probably hard to see in the photo, but the hexagonal cage has several near-horizontal branches. If you're talking about the flight, unfortunately the hardware cloth is only 1/4" spacing, so I can't stick the ends of the branches through. They use the horizontal to 45° parts of the branches, although I could move the branches farther apart so they have to fly more.

Icearstorm
Weaning
Weaning
Posts: 1612
Joined: Thu Sep 01, 2016 5:21 pm

Re: My Flight Cage

Post by Icearstorm » Thu Feb 28, 2019 1:20 pm

Alright, update number whatever. Got rid of the hexagonal cage a few months ago; it was a pain in the butt to clean and the birds didn't like being separated.

Since then, I've gone from a florescent light to LEDs. I'm currently using this shop light and this 365nm UV-A bulb that is in one of my old reptile light fixtures. I don't know if the UV light helps with anything, but I chose it because finch UV vision peaks close to 365nm. They very well could be getting enough UV-A from outdoors, considering that glass doesn't filter it all out. You can't really tell there's a difference in lighting from the photo since the camera adjusts the light.

I recently added some dry leaves on top of the sand. They're still easy to clean, since I can just replace the soiled leaves with fresh ones, and sift the sand underneath to get leftover seed hulls and such. I throw a few handfuls of several kinds of seed over the leaves, and the birds forage. At other times, I sit the hopper feeder on the floor so they can eat their base diet without having to search for it. Now they regularly use pretty much all of the cage, and have little problem keeping themselves occupied all day.

The gravity tubes weren't working as well there as I would have liked, so I took down the center wood thing and am now keeping the tubes at the bottom right, which are held in place by a rubber band and paper clips on each side. The mineral blocks and other stuff is up behind the fake plants by the right, although they usually aren't interested in them (they prefer the ground oyster shell in one of the tubes). The water doesn't really spill, so the terracotta pot underneath wasn't useful after all, so I removed it. Oftentimes the best designs are also fairly simple, which is nice since that gives me less to clean. I imagine I'll still change a few things, but this is approaching the limit of what I could think to improve.
Attachments
Flight 3.jpg

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