Breeding Cages Help

FinchFan09 · Post by **FinchFan09** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 2:03 pm

Hi everyone, brand new to your forum. I've kept finches in an outdoor aviary just mainly for enjoyment purposes but would like to try and tackle the challenge of breeding in individual cages. I want to either build some kind of breeding cabinet where the cages are all enclosed except for the front (for privacy for the birds and to keep messes down) or I would be willing to buy the cages and just stack them, but again want all the sides solid except for the front wire of course.

If I did build it from wood, I planned to make it six cages, 2 cages wide by 3 high, at a minimum of 30" wide and 18" tall per cage. Can any one give me direction and does anyone have tips and advice for someone starting to breed this way? I plan to try some of the fancier zebra mutations, gouldians, cordon bleus, owls, and stars. Thanks so much for any info!

FinchFan09

Rayray · Post by **Rayray** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 4:49 pm

here's an idea ....

ray

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:18 pm

Rayray wrote:here's an idea ....

ray

Ray are those your cages? If so - do you have plans for them? I really like the look and style of them and we are all about constructing our own enclosures to save money!!

Thanks in advance

You can email to me privately if preferred.

Post by **Sally** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:28 pm

www.houseofcrests.com tells how to build cabinet-style breeding cages, but I think he uses punch wire fronts that he makes himself. You have to scroll down thru a lot of stuff on the home page to get to the links to the cages at the bottom.

FinchFan09 · Post by **FinchFan09** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 5:33 pm

Sally wrote:www.houseofcrests.com tells how to build cabinet-style breeding cages, but I think he uses punch wire fronts that he makes himself. You have to scroll down thru a lot of stuff on the home page to get to the links to the cages at the bottom.

Sally, thanks for the link!

RayRay, I really like that setup. Same question as Nixity, are those your cages? Can you buy that wire front with those doors?

Thanks for the help everyone!

Post by **Sally** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:01 pm

There used to be two online vendors who carried cage fronts--unfortunately, both of them are now out of business. Other than that link I gave on an earlier post for the house of crests, I haven't heard of anyone selling cage fronts in the US. For some reason, cabinet-style cages have never caught on here, yet they work so much better for breeding--they are very popular in Europe. If you do a search for poohbear's posts on cages, he has shown some styles available in Europe. There is a company called Corners Unlimited that makes cabinet-style cages, but they are out of my price range.

If you are handy, you can build your own, using wire mesh or hardware cloth for the cage fronts. This site has all kinds of supplies for building your own cages: www.kwcages.com/. They are in California, outside of San Diego (no wonder all those folks in Southern California have such great aviaries!

).

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:23 pm

Sally wrote:This site has all kinds of supplies for building your own cages: www.kwcages.com/. They are in California, outside of San Diego (no wonder all those folks in Southern California have such great aviaries! :lol: ).

Just a note about kwcages - when we were in the process of deciding on the direction to go with our 6' flights - I called KW Cages multiple times to get quotes.
Mainly, because I wanted to build them and have it be the most economical way because I can't afford to blow $500 on a couple of flights if its not necessary.
They were EXTREMELY pleasant, helpful, and willing to assist in answering every stupid little question I had.

If you are not incredibly picky about the material you use for the cages - you can use something called Poultry netting. I got it from Home Depot. It was $16.90 for a 3'x25' Roll.
It's honeycomb structure, a plastic type material - and the holes are around 1/2" or less in diameter.
Significantly small enough to keep out my finches (Gouldians), but I have been told it may be too large for some of the smaller waxbills or other small finch species.

Here are a couple photos of one of the flights we constructed using this poultry netting.

Obviously they are not incredibly fancy. No pull out bottom trays - I'm just using inexpensive towels. Pull them up at the end of the week and replace with clean ones, throw the dirty ones in the wash. I have also since replaced the dowels in these photos with natural branches - just took me a bit to locate some as we had a bit of a snow fall just after we finished constructing these.
But they work - and for $75 in construction materials, I got two 6 feet long, 3 feet high, 20" deep flights :)

L in Ontario · Post by **L in Ontario** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 8:34 pm

That look really good (nice and spaceous too), Tiffany. Is the netting strong enough to hold up nests or would you put nests on the side walls?

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Wed Mar 18, 2009 10:30 pm

L in Ontario wrote:That look really good (nice and spaceous too), Tiffany. Is the netting strong enough to hold up nests or would you put nests on the side walls?

It would be strong enough to hold them provided they weren't like 15 lbs.. but I don't colony breed, so it's a non-issue for me.
They would certainly hold typical finch nests though the mounting might be somewhat of an obstacle.
I imagine you could insert additional pieces of wood framing along the top in order to mount nest boxes to there.. otherwise, wicker nests would hang fine.

FireFinchMayhem · Post by **FireFinchMayhem** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 1:55 am

Hey Ray,

Any chance of getting more pics of your setup and birds? Looks like you have a clean setup going.

poohbear · Post by **poohbear** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:15 am

Some commercially available cages in the UK...Note that larger cages have dividers for ease of cleaning and catching.I HIGHLY RECOMMEND YOU SPEND TIME FITTING THESE...It makes life much easier,for you...and the birds.
Birds one end...you the other cleaning out...no escapes...no panic.

http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:ef ... clnk&gl=uk

If you are making your own cages I would consider making the fronts removable by putting the mesh in like a picture frame that can be totally removed for ease of cleaning.

FinchFan09 · Post by **FinchFan09** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 12:31 pm

Thanks Poohbear!

Has anyone used these cages?

Found this set of four brand new cages with shipping for under a hundred bucks on eBay. They are each 30"x18"x18".

I'm just worried about mess. I wish there was a way to to keep that to a minimum. That's why I thought of building a cabinet with all the sides enclosed except for the front wire to keep the mess down. But these wire cages, if they are decent, might do the trick as long as I can figure out how to keep the mess under control. (Don't want to annoy my wife) Anyone have any tips for mess control? Maybe special feeders or something? I know these cages come with open topped feeders as you can see from the pic but maybe if I had something else the mess would be a lot less?

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 3:48 pm

FinchFan09 wrote:Thanks Poohbear!

Has anyone used these cages?

Found this set of four brand new cages with shipping for under a hundred bucks on eBay. They are each 30"x18"x18".

I use similar breeders only mine are white and have nest box openings on the sides - but they are the same size and similar construction. My boyfriend built a small table they sit on, and all four are stacked (see here: http://www.gouldiansgalore.net/housing.html).
This is the easiest way (for me) to deal with mess because it allows me to easily sweep or use a hand held dust buster to get under the cages by having them up off the ground on the small table.
But really - there will be mess regardless. Anytime they fly in the cage, the seed hulls are going to scatter!

ac12 · Post by **ac12** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:16 pm

Seeing as most have the openings on the front, has anyone "made" another opening in the side of the cage for a nest box?
I like nixity's locating the box on the side. I'm less likely to run into the nest box, and I can see into the box w/o opening it up.

nixity · Post by **nixity** » Thu Mar 19, 2009 4:21 pm

With the cages I have (3 out of 4 anyway) the box doors were already in. They are spring loaded, but somewhat annoying is that they are not all on the same side of the cage.
The one that doesn't have a nest box "door" was purchased separately and at the time it was used for a non-breeding bird so wasn't necessary.
But the others, which I ordered online from PetCo oddly enough ($50+ order and the shipping is free) all came with the spring loaded opening.