Flight Aviary

[tammieb]

Your aviary looks fantastic Dean. Great job!

I think you will find the second access door will be worth the trouble of installing. You don't want to have to go through the larger door anymore than absolutely necessary and risk losing birds.

[societyspice]

WOW!! Your aviary looks great! I wish I had the room for something like that!

[reddstagg]

Well i set loose 10 zebra finches and 2 silver quail into the aviary last Monday.
The zebs i got were:
4 fawn M
1 silver M
3 fawn F
2 silver F
5 lovely pairs... and today i spotted 5 nests in the aviary.
(OH NO I think im going to be over run with birds very soon. Maybe i should of only had 3pairs)

My zebs are extremely nice, they came from a lovely breeder who is employed by a local pet shop to run the bird room out the back... his passion is birds, not the business.

Some of the birds:


This is the aviary planted out with fishbone ferns and spinifex.. the bamboo isn't doing too well in the pots especially with the lack of decent water.
I was told the tea-tree branches are great for security and nest building... they are also the preferred roosting trees in the wild.


This was the aviary before i pulled it down and rebuilt.

I cant believe how similar it looks in the photos... its a bit deceivingly but the aviary is quite bigger compared to the old. And sooo much better having the door on the side.

Next aviary (Along time away) is going to be a good 25ftx10ftx10ft... can always dream

Dean

[tammieb]

It looks fantastic Dean. And yeah, those five pairs will soon produce lots and lots of chicks! You'll be needing that larger aviary real soon!

[Carmen]

Wow nice aviary Dean, and definetly nice plants! It looks great!
Maybe you can put out a few flags, so you can put the plants in the ground?
It will look even more nice and natural when you can't see pots in it.
In my indoor aviary I have a concrete flour, and I'm still trying to find a solution for the potproblem
Someone an idea?

[reddstagg]

Yeah, on the left you can see the spinifex, im going to run that the whole way across the front to cover the other pots... it still leaves alot of floor space for the quail.

While they may not look very natural i think pots are a more practical solution to having plants in an aviary:
=You can remove them and let them recover
=You can also move the pots around if one area is heavily soiled
=They also are alot better to water (just water the pots instead of the whole aviary... we have a bad drought)
=You can remove them all and give the aviary a good clean
=You still have the concrete floor so disease and rodents are less of a worry
=When they die you dont have to dig them out (My bamboo is dead... ill just remove the pots and shuffle around the other pots to fill the gaps)

[tammieb]

I agree about the potted plants Dean, might not look as natural, but maintenance is easier.

I wonder if it would be feasible to use some hollowed out sections of tree trunks and place either pots or plant directly in them for a more natural look?

Like this,

[reddstagg]

Hey that looks fantastic! Are they artificial logs?

It seems like a fair bit of effort to hid the pots... Im not too bothered by the pot plants, im also a constant fiddler, i dont think i could manage putting things in and leaving them... i was thinking of coating the pots in some twig matting.. but i was worried about birds getting caught up in it.

The ferns should eventually grow so big that they will wilt down and cover the pots anyway... the quail will love the hiding holes im sure.

[tammieb]

I'm sure you are right about the ferns. Once everything gets to growing you probably won't seem much of the pots. They wouldn't bother me much, but I do like the artifical log planters too.