Moving birds to outside aviary - coldness?

[finchbob]

My new aviary is ready and I have a ton of masked grass finches and fawn bichenos to move into it. They are used to being kept indoors, it's about 60-70 degrees in the room they are in.

The aviary is completely closed in, no drafts can get into it atall so there's no worry about cold draft killing them, which is the main problem out of the way.

During a sunny day it gets fairly hot in there, it has been 80 degrees in the aviary during the day for the past few days.

During nighttime it drops to about 50 degrees, do you think this will be warm enough for them? 50 degrees, but no draft. I don't want to find any dead birds, though 50 degrees isn't really that cold. My hecks finches did fine in my other aviary during the winter and it got as low as 35 degrees then.

[Ursula]

My indoor aviary is a sunroom with windows on 3 sides of the room, so it gets pretty warm during the day too. But I have a ceramic heater in there in winter because it also cools off a lot. (There is no heat/AC vent in that room.) I try to never let it fall under 65... Right now, I turn the heater off during the day but still on "low" at night. I know that some bird keeper have their birds outside year round, but I think the key is that they gradually get used to lower temperatures....

Just my personal opinion: I would wait until the night temperatures are higher if they are used to having at least 60 now. Or put a heater in that you can turn on at night.

[poohbear]

Where are you Bob?

[finchbob]

uk

[poohbear]

I'm picking birds up today for new aviary with indoor section...I'll keep an eye on the weather and move them indoors if frosts threaten.
Let me know if you get any spare hecks Bob.

[finchbob]

No spare atm.

I've decided to completely insulate the entire aviary, so now instead of just a wooden wall they have wood, followed by thick insulation and then another layer of wood, that will help keep the temperature up in there.

[poohbear]

Done the same with my winter quarters Bob...New birds being kept at around 50f as most of them were kept in a house and aren't used to low temps.

[finchbob]

Finally finished insulating, put a test bird out there atm, a lone gouldian hen who doesn't seem to get along with other birds very well.

I have 3 thermometers to measure the temperature, 1 is in the garden to measure the outside temperature, at 10.30pm it was 32 degrees or just above freezing.

The aviary has 3 compartments, the first compartment is the entry/storage part, where birds have no access, the middle is the warmest area of the lot, it's mostly closed in with 1 window which is blocked off by an insulation disc which I use to fill the window in during cold times.

The 3rd compartment has a large plastic window, about 4 foot by 6 foot, it's pretty thick plastic that was designed for stuff like that, it's actually supposed to be just mesh covering this part but I put this thick plastic over the mesh to fully seal the area of from the cold. This section is currently 52 degrees and the heater doesn't seem to be making a difference here as it's placed in the middle section. Not sure if that's too cold or not.

The heater is in the middle room and only ever turns on when the temperature drops below 60 degrees, which is rarely ever because it's well insulated, sadly that heat doesn't seem to escape into and warm up the 3rd section for some reason.

I think that's pretty good, 32 degrees in the garden, 52 in outer part of the aviary (completely sealed though) and 62 degrees in the inner part of the aviary. Birds can move freely between the inner or outer part as there are holes in the door. Very little heating is being used, i've watched the heater for ages, it turns on for about 5 minutes an hour and warms up then turns off again. I could place a 2nd heater in the outer part of the aviary to get the temp up a little, not sure if it's needed though.

[finchbob]

Added a photo of my aviary, 13 foot long by 6 foot wide, the whole thing is insulated, the only problem now is it's getting up to 90 degrees out there during the day, and it's only april. Is that too hot?

You can see inside the window holes an insulation layer followed by more board, I kept the discs I cut out of that so I can completely fill in those windows with insulating during cold times.

It's not easy to see unless you look at it full size, but there is a thick plastic window covering the mesh, I have that because garden temperature drops to about 32 degrees at night.

[lovemyfinch]

That is so beautiful. I m so envious of all that are able to give their fids an outdor dwelling. I don't think they would ever be able to survive the winters here.

[Marvin]

Hi Bob

Thats a fabulous set up you have.

I'm sure your birds will be fine. My birds are outside and survived -10 degrees with the help of a small oil-filled radiator in the inside flight.

They also managed to raise chicks over Christmas too.

http://www.finchforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=8067

I made simple plastic sheets that can be raised and lowered to keep the snow and frost out too, batons with drilled holes that slot onto bolts thru the wood and are secured by nuts.





It all worked a treat and I didn't lose any birds this winter due to cold.

[Ursula]

Doesn't it also depend on the type of species that you're keeping outside? I always thought that zebras are much more hardy than for example waxbills...

[finchbob]

Yes, mine has masked grass finches and bichenos, which as far as I know should be ok even throughout winter as long as they were given time to adjust to that level of temperature.

[CandoAviary]

My bird house ranged from 80 % to 90% last summer. I had fans that moved the air through the house so it stayed well ventilated. The birds did fine but you may want to intall intake and exhaust fans in you disc...you don't want the temp to rise any higher. Nice bird house

[poohbear]

Nice one Bob...couldn't work out what was perching on the right and outside...till I blew pic up and saw it was clothes pegs on the line.