The Aviary my father and I are building :)

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 10:58 pm

Firsty my name is Jarryd, and i breed Gouldian Finches, i will firsty attach a picture of my Aviary i have at the moment, which houses 14 Gouldians. it is 8 ft Long, 8 ft High and 4 ft Wide. it used to be a Cockatoo Cage, that belonged to my Pop, but he gave the aviary to us, so we could keep gouldians in it. We put on all the sheet metal, painted the wire black, made the safety door, put Brick/Concrete for the flooring and also brought a Outdoor Blind to use in Winter to prevent Drafts. For a First Aviary my father and i were very happy with the end result, since befor this we had no real clue on how to build a avairy.

We are now in the process of building a 2nd Aviary from Scratch. We are modeling this 2nd aviary on our original Aviary, the dimesions will be 8 ft Long, 8 ft High and 5 ft Wide.

We have been lucky enough to accuire alot of the building material for free. We have Bricks for the Floor. Sheet metal for all the inclosed sides and roof. and the frame will be made out of Hard Wood which we have a whole pile of. i would perfer Steel tubing. but we got the Hard Wood for free and in a large quantitie.

Below is the Site of the new Aviary. the hose will be moved and plants also moved we will be bringing the sleeper out abit and having the aviary as close to the fence as possible, the safety door will be behind the tree you see on the right.

We started work on the Aviary appox 3 days ago, cutting the Wood for the frame. Once that was done we started building the frame starting with the side walls which were 5 ft wide by 8ft high. once we made both of them we started joining it all together.

Pictured Below is the Frame, still have some more work to do!!!

Its lying down with the front of the aviary on the grass.

thats all i have at the moment, im hoping to document the rest of the project on this forum for everyone to see the process and the finished product. in the next day or too il be uploading my photo's.

JARRYD

B CAMP · Post by **B CAMP** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:13 pm

Jarryd
Looks good so far ,are you going to have metal on three sides it might be hot in the summer,how hot is it there? What kind of floor are you planing,to keep the critters out?
Thats the kind of materials I like to use [frees for me] I paint with the same ,what I got at the time.
keep the pictures coming welcome to the forum

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Wed Nov 12, 2008 11:38 pm

Im having the floor concrete with bricks, and it can get warm here in Melbourne(Australia) my goulds seem to do fine in the heat, as long as they have there bath their normaly good in the heat. i occasonly spary them with a water bottle on extreamly hot days. its more the winter and the drafts that i will be closing all the sides up. with the first aviary it was practiculy draft proof so im using the same concept with this aviary because in australia its the draft and cold that will kill the gould rather then a hot day. having the aviary next to the tree will also keep it kool. it will recieve morning sun which is good.

Jarryd

B CAMP · Post by **B CAMP** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:09 am

I have a small aviary in my garden have zebs mostly, I have a misting system in my garden and and I put A spray head in the aviary so that when I water the garden the birds play in the water and they love it
Good luck on your construction

FeatherHarp · Post by **FeatherHarp** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:44 am

Jarryd....that is quite the project you are taking on!

I hope you will manage to find the time to keep posting more photos as you make progress with your aviary....we will all be waiting for updated pics. And if you don't....we can get real agitated and surly and you don't want to make us mad!

Good luck and don't hammer any fingers!

gomer · Post by **gomer** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 4:20 am

Hi Jarryd,Melbourne is not hot for finches at all,Unless you have the curtain down on hot days,Try to face your aviary north or east or a combination of both,for the southern hemisphere.nice job on the first one Looks nice for your birds.Looks something like my first aviary.

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 11:20 am

Great job on the first aviary and now a second one in the works - good for you! Keep it up and keep us posted!

franny · Post by **franny** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 12:05 pm

Hi Jarryd,

Looks great. I envy all you folks on here who can have an outdoor aviary. I'm in a small apartment, with northern exposure, so my poor little guys are lucky to get direct sunlight for about 10 minutes a day, if the sun shines. And being in BC, Canada, it doesn't shine often!

Looking forward to seeing pics of the aviary as it progresses.

dfcauley · Post by **dfcauley** » Thu Nov 13, 2008 7:20 pm

Looking forward to seeing more pictures soon!

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:55 am

Aviary Frame is now standing ( oldman posing for the camera lol)

tomorro hoping to start cutting the sheet metal.

Jarryd

FeatherHarp · Post by **FeatherHarp** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 8:58 am

Wow...that is going to be a very nice and very large Aviary....you guys get to do all the work and we just get to watch the progress...lol.

Can't wait for the next update! Tell "oldman" to hurry we want to see it finished!

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 9:02 am

[quote="gomer"]Hi Jarryd,Melbourne is not hot for finches at all,Unless you have the curtain down on hot days,

At all???? what about summer when it gets in the 40's ??????

i said its gonna be the cold that kills them rather then the heat.

what finches do u keep???

jarryd

gomer · Post by **gomer** » Fri Nov 14, 2008 6:59 pm

You are lucky to get to 40 three to four times a year.where most of ozzie finches come from in the wild,its alot warmer then Melbourne during the day every day.Although the night time temps are similar.But you don't have the wind chill up north.You know when they are hot when they are all on the ground,to get away from the heat.I might give them a hose down on hot days Less then ten times a year,But that's also for my enjoyment.
Quote;what finches do u keep???
There are 18 ozzies with sub species.I don't have yet.
beautiful firetail
red-eared firetail
some i have one pair others fifteen plus young.

mickp · Post by **mickp** » Sat Nov 15, 2008 4:52 am

great work so far. be careful though, work the oldman to hard and he may charge you for all his labour, a carton of beer sounds fair

Misso · Post by **Misso** » Sun Nov 16, 2008 2:12 am

Hi everyone.

Over the weekend we have done abit more to the Aviary.

Pictured below is the roof supports and the levels of wood that will allow the rain to run down on to the grass.

We then put in the frame for the door its about 6 ft 3 high and just under 2ft wide. Needs to fit me in and the vacuum cleaner.

Cleared the Garden out and started leveling the ground, took out the sleeper and started trimming the tree so it could fit in. then we moved the aviary closer to its spot, so while its not to heavy we can put the tin on and now only have to move it alittle further into place

We basically cut all the tin today for all the sides and roof, only thing we need to cut is the door.

Thats all for the moment. hoping to screw on the tin during the week, my father is going away fishing next weekend, so he will be pretty busy this week getting ready so we might not make much progess, im hoping to do some painting for the front and on some of the tin so it blends in to our Verandah.

Then we will be shopping for wire, where hoping thats the only thing we have to buy to make this aviary. will see.

JARRYD

FINCHforum

The Aviary my father and I are building :)

The Aviary my father and I are building :)

UPDATE!