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I have a small bedroom that I wanted to turn into a flight avary. The avary will be around 6 feet by 5 feet by 8 feet high. I have a good idea of building the avary, but am worry about the floor. I got some advice on the forum to use pond liner or some plastic bags on the floor.

The reason for building the flight avary was to have a larger space for my gouldians and canaries. Also, I dont want to clean the bottom floor everyday. It takes alot of time.

If I were to build the avary, how do I go about cleaning the floor once a week. What materials can I use to put on top of the liner?

Any advice will be helpful. Thank you.

Anthony

Are you wanting to build the aviary on top of carpet, hardwood flooring, or tile? You could always put a bottom of plywood on the aviary, so it has its own floor. Then you could use whatever bedding your wanted, but always with the thought that you would need to protect against water possibly leaking thru the floor and wetting whatever surface is underneath. I love the idea that Ursula used of putting pond liner down over carpet, then using bedding in the aviary.

Check this link http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php ... 241#p83241
The post from Ursula

It also depends whether you want only birds who rarely go on the floor, such as finches and canaries, or also some that spend a lot or all of their time on the floor. I have button quail, therefore some sort of bedding is pretty much a must. Some people on the forum have avuaries with tile floor that can be cleaned easier. But it really depends what you have in the room already.

I don't think I would put a wooden floor on top of a carpet and then the shavings on that directly. Sooner or later there will be water spills and wet spots, even with the shavings. And you need to be able to clean the floor when you take the shavings out.

The bedroom has laminate floor installed. I am thinking of putting a pond liner in if it is not too expensive, otherwise, I will put a tarp on top of the laminate floor.

I am more concern about cleaning the bottom floor. Right now I have an avary that is 2.5' wide by 9' long by 4' high. It's a pain to clean since I put newspapers on the bottom. When I clean the cage every morning, I have to take the newspapers out then clean any foods (spray millets, seeds, etc) out and then put a new set of newspapers back in.

I want to avoid cleaning the bottom floor everyday. My main purpose of building a flight avary was that I dont have to clean the floor everyday, but rather, once a week. My avary houses 11 gouldian finches and 6 canaries.

I don't even clean my cages every day! With an aviary, and aspen bedding (or some sort of bedding), you shouldn't have to clean more often than once a week for sure.

I don't clean every day! I think I mentioned that I clean some of the shavings every other week. I also wipe down surfaces and clean the fake greenery. (This is best by soaking it in hot water for an hour or so and then rinse it off. I use the bathtub for that.)

Of course it will also depend on the number and type of birds you put in, etc.

I think the tarp will work just fine if you are careful with moving heavy things and walking (then it might rip). Pond liner is pretty expensive, I agree...

Don't expect less work overall though, it IS work to care for the aviary. But you definitely won't have to clean every day. I think the biggest advantage is to see the joy of them flying around your head instead of hopping from branch to branch. That's why I did, not for sake of less work...

There are so many great people in this forum providing the best advices. I greatly appreciate all the contributions and inputs from all of you.

I will wait for a month or two to carefully think about the setup of my avary. The current avary that I built last year was not well thought out. It was 2.5' wide by 9' long by 4' high. I used Mesh wires from Homedepot for the surrounding. There are so many seeds, spray millets, and feather laying outside the cage.

My future flight avary needs to cover all the foods and feathers from flying outside the cage. One solution is to wrap the cage with clear painting bags and put mesh wires over it. The other solution is to put mesh wire on top and use plexi-glass near the bottom. I dont know how nice it will look though. My flight avary will be 5' wide by 8' high by 6' long.

Since I am a remodeler specializing in carpentry, I want to build the nicest flight avary where I dont have to clean the bottom floor everyday.

Anthony

ahoang25 wrote:...My future flight avary needs to cover all the foods and feathers from flying outside the cage. One solution is to wrap the cage with clear painting bags and put mesh wires over it. The other solution is to put mesh wire on top and use plexi-glass near the bottom. I dont know how nice it will look though. My flight avary will be 5' wide by 8' high by 6' long.

Since I am a remodeler specializing in carpentry, I want to build the nicest flight avary where I dont have to clean the bottom floor everyday.

Anthony

Here's a link to one of my favourite aviaries. The front is almost entirely plexiglass (just a bit of wire mesh on top for ventilation. Looks wonderful, and keeps ALL seed and feathers in. The only thing I would do differently is add a proper safety catch (extra section at one end to use to enter and exit without birds escaping.

http://www.finchaviary.com/Construction ... uction.htm

For the safety catch - this link is to the FIC at left, where there are simple plans on how to build an aviary with safety catch:

http://www.finchinfo.com/housing/panel_ ... uction.php