FINCHforum

Almost completed my outdoor aviary build, frame work for the outside flight is up ( just waiting on delivery of mesh), bird house almost complete with just the trap door to be built.
My question is what to use on the floor? Both bird house and flight, the bird house has a solid wooden floor, but the outside is a grassed area, could I keep the grass and maybe plant a shrub or 2? That's what I would like and maybe use wood shavings for the bird house?, easy to sweep clean and replace then.
I would also like to keep a couple of quale as well if this helps, the rest will be finches.
The flight size is 7ft long and 8 ft wide and 7ft high.
The bird house is 7ft X 4ft shed
Thanks

My aviary has concrete flags and I put shavings down sometimes. This is so easy to brush and keep clean. I have some artificial grass pieces which I lift out and brush regularly. It is mainly under the perches that gets mucky. I would think grass and earth would be ok in a larger aviary but it is so wet where I live that this is not practical.

Thanks for the reply.
I guess the grass growing and the odd "bird friendly plant" would be safe and with the droppings will help it all grow and naturally degrade safely.
It's a bit mucky at the moment as I have been building the flight and this rain hasn't helped, but a few grass seeds or turf will soon sort that out, its normally pretty good.
Wood shavings inside and changed regular I guess would be fine?

Hi,
I used both concrete (inside) and a natural decomposed granite (gravel) floor in the outdoor flight. The weather protected area is about 30' long x 7' wide x 12' high with a small controllable creek that runs the entire length with 5 water features all along the way. The concrete floor in that area is exposed aggregate painted with a sand color epoxy. Natural looking and easy to wash out every 2 weeks. I sometimes use wood chips on the inside floor so I can sweep rather than wash on cold winter days.

The outside flight area is another 30' long display space where the "creek" continues in a natural looking concrete meander. There's now a big bird bath in that area and two "green feeders" where I grow turf in 2 separate welded wire covered frames. The slightly elevated floor frames keep the birds from pulling the grass out by the roots. My birds are fed plenty of greens from 2 separate 5' long "treat trays" but will devour anything green except for a good size 35 year old juniper bonsai I have growing in the outside flight. The 30' outside part is low profile - only 4' high by 4' wide but the birds can fly the entire 60' of flight space from one end to the other. Fun to watch them all arrive as a flock when I open the door to that area. Key thing in floor design of a large aviary (for easy cleaning) is proper drainage. I made sure everything drains to a central point outside - where leftover seed is screened for a trio of "pet" wild mallards who like to hang out here. The pics show mostly red factors but I also have quite a few finch species and a colony of 23 very cute button quail on the floor. This is a very personal hobby where I can observe behaviors from as close as 12" away from the dining room window. I'm still working from a home office so I need to keep the aviary project as low maintenance as possible.

You have an awesome aviary!

Paul's Amazing Birds

That is an amazing aviary ...

That is one brilliant looking aviary Paul, thanks for the write up

Thanks for all the complements! This is such a personal thing for me but sometimes it's good to share a unique hobby like this with folks who understand the joys of caring for exotic birds.

My aviary sort of evolved over a 30 year period. When the fence posts finally started to rot away about 4 years ago, I decided to sell all my birds and tear the whole thing down to the dirt and start over....making a big effort to correct all the mistakes I made in the earlier designs. Still a work in progress but I find this and my landscape projects to be some of the most relaxing and creative pass-times I can imagine.

An aviary I truly admire is a large landscaped Gouldian exhibit at the California Academy of Sciences in Golden Gate Park called " The Color of Life". I can highly recommend a day-trip there if you're ever in the area.