WARNING....Cage doors and closed bands, a close call

[cindy]

Thank God we were home, I have a large 5 ft flight, checked when we got in from a movie, both my male and female scarlet chested parakeets were fine.....during dinner I heard flapping, looked over and my hen was upside down hanging from the front inside of the cage...her colored closed band the breeder put on her to ID her family was caught on the hook on the door edges....the curved part that allows your cage door to slide up and down the bar... all the 30x18 and 24x16 doors are like that. I freed her, I think she will be ok. She is resting. Taking a needle nose pliers and tightening the hook to the doors.

My heart just sank, what if this happened when I wasn't home

[Sally]

Glad you found her right away. Yes, if you had not been home, she could have seriously injured herself in her panic. There are often many not-quite-closed hooks or slightly larger spaces where the birds can get hung up. And part of it is just the nature of keeping birds in cages--they will get hung up from time to time. I've had my share of birds that I find hanging upside-down, too late to save them.

[cindy]

Sally, I have even had a bird fly to the side/corner of the cage slide down and get a leg lodged between the bars...I zip tie the edges of the white cages tight now. I saved the bird since I was right there to see it happen.

Many years ago I lost a gorgeous spice finch that was nesting to the curly coco fiber and nesting material with sisal in it. He got a foot caught leaving the nest...I found him to late. I strongly caution not to use the curly coco fiber or the bedding sold for hamsters with hair and strings in it.

[EyesofFreedom]

I noticed this when I was using the Petco 18 x 18 x 30 flights... I took a pair of pliers and closed all the loops... and then anywhere a section joined together I took white zip ties and tighten the two bars until there was no gap... I didn't want someone's toe or something else getting caught... cost... $2

[cindy]

Did you close the hooked part that allows the doors to slide up and down? That is were she got caught.

[EyesofFreedom]

no... in there I did some MacGuyver stuff

I took some toilet paper and rolled it up as tight as possible... I then took and wet my fingers and pulled them down the twisted roll to "glue" it together... using a twisting motion I slowly worked it in the gap... I then trimmed it so it was about 1/8th inch above and below (because when there is a cup in there the door top doesn't come all the way down to the other rod anyways) thus filling the whole with something soft, non toxic and flexible ;)

Wow what was my ex thinking bwahahahaha

[cindy]

I have some fish tank filter tubing I may cut into sections and insert the end of the hook into on end enough to close the gap that is between the door and the end of the hook. Since these are hookbills the tissue paper would get nibbled at and ingested. She got caught on not the seed door but the main cage door.

[EyesofFreedom]

I'm actually at a loss there... everything I come up with fails the nibble test...

maybe you could try some garlic-ed wax...?

take some paraffin wax... melt it and ad garlic powder to it... it will be non toxic and just have a bad taste... you could drip it over the gap and then slide the door up and down as it cools... filling all but small part of the gap...

if they eat it once they wont do it a second time ;)

[cindy]

I would not use wax, if they ate that is could impact...garlic on the other hand is used in a lot of bird foods. My Grey loved garlic.

If the tubing works I will post it.

[EyesofFreedom]

ok good luck...

fyi putting the tubing in hot water for a little while will make it easier to put on

[cindy]

This was a very frightening thing to happen, hope this never happens again....so glad we picked up dinner on the way home instead of going out to dinner....if we had gone out to eat and this happened she could have been badly injured while struggling to get free or worse.

[EyesofFreedom]

that's why I lean towards the split band... I am hoping that in a similar situation they will be able to get free because of the split...

[cindy]

The aluminum splits will not give easily. I have had to pry a split band off when it got wedged over a foot, took a bit of doing. Most birds when caught up on something panic to get away and would most likely suffer injury,doubt the bands like perler beads will give way, those are thick.

I use split colored and split aluminum.

[EyesofFreedom]

the ones I use are more rubbery than plastic... if I leave them on the tool too long (more than 5 mins) they stretch out where they just fall off

[cindy]

This was a frightening experience and regardless of what band she had on it would not have ended well if I was not home.

Parakeet/Budgie bands ares thicker than finch bands like the one you described. I just ordered those (finch) canary (for javas) and budgie split bands from L&M. There is a difference between the thickness of the budgie and finch. The Scarlet wears the budgie size.