Hookbill-proof cage door closures

[MiaCarter]

So, our two cockatiels don't have a cage. They fly free 24-7 in the bird room.

Usually, they're very well behaved.

But lately, they've been breaking into the cages at night. Hunter knows how to open the sliding doors with ease. I used to use twist ties, but his mate Abby takes care of those. She can snip them off with her beak in about 5 seconds flat.

They're quite the little team.

So I'm not sure why they're busting into their cages. They don't have anything in there that's not present outside of the cage. They have all the same foods, better toys, etc.

They also have free access to the cages during the day. I leave all cage doors open during free-fly. They almost never go into the cages.

So when Hunter and Abby break in, they usually eat their food (again, they've got the exact same foods at various locations throughout the bird room.) Then they'll explore the various nooks and crannies. Peeking into nests, chewing on nests, messing with the foliage, etc.

Their favorite cage is the one with a nesting couple who is supposed to have babies any day now so I'm VERY nervous about this new habit. Especially because Abby is a known egg eater and she once tried to pluck a newborn baby out of my hand.
As you can imagine, the parents get very distressed by these break-ins and I don't blame them! I've been alerted to the break ins twice tonight due to their shrieking and dive-bombing the cockatiels.

In short, someone is going to get hurt. This must end.

I've tried to use zip ties and while they slow them down, they don't stop them. It takes Abby about 3-5 min to get through a zip tie. Even bitter apple spray won't deter her.
It's like she enjoys the challenge.

So does anyone know of something I can use to secure the sliding doors on my cages?
I thought of wrapping craft wire around the wires to secure the door, but it would be hard for me to remove. Obviously whatever I use needs to be something that I can remove fairly easily.

My only other option is to cage them, which is not pretty. (Nor easy since they can open doors!) The shrieking is incessant and very disruptive/upsetting to the other birds.

Ideas? Anyone??

[jamezyboo21]

Do you think you can use paper clips or some kind of clips? I use clips on some of my cages to keep the doors closed. I even thought about tiny padlocks but that might be to time consuming having to unlock them every time.

[MiaCarter]

jamezyboo21 - Can you show me how you use clips on your doors?

That's a good idea with the padlocks.
At this point, it may be the only solution.

It would be time-consuming unlocking locks, but it's one of the only options I can think of that's not bite-proof!

Another idea I thought about was carabiners.


But I'm not sure I'll be able to find them small enough. They'd need to be tiny - under maybe 3/4 of an inch long. The standard 3-inch length would provide them with way too much room to squeeze in. (And to be honest, they're really easy to open, but as long as I hide what I'm doing to open them so they don't see how it's done, I think it would take them at least a couple weeks to figure it out.)

Whatever I choose, it needs to be something I can buy locally at a hardware store because I don't think I have more than a day or so before those babies are born.

Another thing that I just thought about was a type of door closure that I had on some of my larger mammal cages.
It's a hook and on the shaft of the hook there's a spring. So to unhook you need to pull the hook forward with a fair amount of strength - strength I don't think they have. But those spring coils make me nervous. They look like a danger to little toes.

[jamezyboo21]

The door closure spring sounds good to use. I will have to take a pic tomorrow and post it. Its like the clips you use for name tags or badges but works great on cage doors as well

[jamezyboo21]

MiaCarter this is what i use on the cage doors. They sell them at walmart.

[cindy]

These work great.....

[jamezyboo21]

Cindy I like those too. Idk why I never thought to use those. I'm gonna stop by one if the hobby stores this weekend and see if I can find some. I would need really small ones though for the 1/2 galvanized wire.

[Jen]

My Budgies were pretty good escape artists so I used these to keep the door "locked". They come in lots of sizes! Good luck!!! Can't wait to see pics of the babies that are almost due!

[cindy]

Cindy I like those too. Idk why I never thought to use those. I'm gonna stop by one if the hobby stores this weekend and see if I can find some. I would need really small ones though for the 1/2 galvanized wire.

Try Home Depot or Lowe's, in the hardware department.. Feed stores may have them also. Make sure they are stainless steel since hookbills tend to mouth everything.

[Atbird]

These work great.....

I used these with a ringneck escape artist. They are very easy to use and it doesn't slow me down at all. But the birds can't open it.

[Colt]

So what did you decide on?

Everyone suggested every clip I thought of. Which should all work quite well on nosey cockatiels. Larger parrots not so much. My friend has a Lesser Sulpher Crested Cockatoo he retired from his breeding program and that bird undoes bolts and takes apart her whole cage to get out.

It started as her innocently opening the door to her cage so he latched it and locked it. He finally had to get a keyed lock to put on the door. he was scared he'd lose the keys so he left them in the lock. Well she'd just reach through and unlock the door. So he hung them by the cage. She unscrewed her perch and reached through the cage hooked the keys and let herself out. So he moved the keys next to the front door of the birdroom. Then she started taking the bolts out and he used some stuff to bind the bolts to the cage once they were tightened. That has kept her in her cage.

[MiaCarter]

Okay, so, here's what we tried....


- We tried caribiners, but they decided to stick their heads in there, and that scared me, so no caribiners.

- I couldn't find the hooks with the spring at any local hardware store, so those were ruled out as an immediate fix.

- We tried some of Jen's paperclip thingies. I used a medium size and somehow, Abby got one of them off (and if she can get 1 off, she can get all of them off.) I have no idea how she did it as it took a fair amount of pinch strength to clip it over the bars. It did take her about an hour though.

- So far, the winner has been cindy!
I have a bunch of leashes with those hooks, so I tried hooking the leashes to a couple cage doors. Looks funny, but works nicely! So I'm going to give it a week and if she can't figure it out, I'll buy some more hooks of this style.

I'm not sure if she'll be able to figure it out. She seems to understand that the little button on the side is the key (I think she saw me opening one yesterday), but doesn't have the strength to open it. So I think that's the winner!

Thank goodness cockatiels don't have dextrious feet. We'd be in trouble with Abby!

I **swear** this bird LIKES the challenge! She goes straight over to the new clip the second I walk out the room!

This is a game to her.
Around 10 o clock last night - about an hour after lights out - she got into the cage with the budgies (they've got a cheesy littel lever that you've got to lift to open the door and it seems she's figured it out) and she started doing a strange vocalization that was clearly directed at me.

It was a very clear "look at me, ma! I'm in with Chet and Louise!" I had to grab her to get her out so they could get back to sleep. (I don't like grabbing her but she was playing the stay-away-from-mum game and wouldn't step up. She would come to the open doorway, stand there and then when I approached, she'd quickly climb up to the highest perch.
So it's very clear that little miss Abby has found a new way to get mum's attention on-demand!

[Sheather]

So funny your birds are so, well, intelligent. My Gracie must not be the brightest bulb in the box because he's yet to even figure out how to slide open an unsecured cage door let alone any sort of lock. My budgie Alex figured that out in a day and a half back when I had them caged - he'd even then go back and let his mate out. Smarty pants.

[MiaCarter]

Sheather - You know, I think it's all Abby.
When I had just Hunter, he was so well-behaved and boring! He was content to hang out and sing and watch TV and get cuddles and nap all day.

But then we adopted Abby and everything changed!
She is a little spitfire. She craves attention 24-7 and is CONSTANTLY on the go, getting into mischief!
Hunter is now super active, but he's the follower. Abby leads their adventures and gets into all sorts of mischief!
She's very stubborn which is what I think givers her the advantage. She'll mess with a cage door for hours, whereas Hunter tries something and gives up if it doesn't work right away. (Or maybe he's just smart - he'll let Abby do the hard work!)

[cindy]

if your birds are mouthing the latches from the dog leashes you need to make sure they do not contain zinc or a metal that can harm them...I believe they sell stainless steel latches at home improvement stores.