Josie the Budgie's homemade cage

[Khelkhet]

The cage is 6 feet tall, 37 inches wide, 17 inches deep. Right now there's a divider halfway up, though once Josie is able to fly the divider will be coming out. I figured that if the divider is up halfway, that's less distance for the foolish bird to fall when she tries to fly and misses the perch. The perches themselves are alder branches, although back when I took this picture I hadn't put them in yet. Because it's winter and I didn't want to risk a draft, I moved Josie out of the living room (Where the cage was in this picture) and put her into my bedroom. Too many people coming and going out there, plus that picture window is drafty anyway. I am intending to get at least 3 more budgies, so this cage should be roomy enough for them all.

[jackieann82]

Wow! That cage is huge! Good job, I am sure your bird will be very happy in there.

[Goosemoose]

What kind of bird is Josie? I'm bird naive. Is she a budgie?

[Khelkhet]

Yeah, Josie is a budgie. Puh, you thought -rats- were addictive...

[BionicKoi]

I'm sure she's the happiest budgie in the world with that size cage!! That is amazing and she'll be even happier in a flock.

[Mirabell]

What type of fencing did you use?  That cage is beautiful, but I hope it is zinc free.

[Khelkhet]

It's galvanized metal. The zoos use it for their birds and small animals like skunks, etc. All I was told to do to pre-treat it is scrub it before putting animals in it...something to do with oxidizing. Or speeding upthe oxidation process and washing away any possible chemicals...something like that.

[-Kelly-]

Wow, huge cage! The one thing I notice about small bird cages is there are never seed guards. I'm not sure how you could add those on there, but it's be a great idea.

The cage looks awesome though!

[Khelkhet]

*looks at her seed-covered carpet*

Yeah. I ran into that problem. The plus side is that each time I build one of these cages I get better at it and find flaws in previous designs. My rats have similar cages, but I learned that a) rats like to pee in corners and b) shelves are hard to clean, so in my next round of cage-building, I know I need to make the cage differently and make shelves removable for easy cleaning and changing the cage around.

For my birds, I think the next cage will have a solid back, the part against the wall, and then I'll have ledges where the food is kept so that seed droppage goes straight down into the litter catchy pan thing. That should help with the seed drops some.

Thanks for all the great comments about my cage! Anyone with suggestions or ideas, keep posting! I get my 4th bird at the end of feb, it'll be a wee little baby, and so before then I'll be building version 2 of my cage and hopefully this one will be even better. The new one should be about the same size, -but- if I have enough wire, it'll be about 20 inches deep instead of 17 inches deep. I'm hoping eventually to have a cage big enough that I can stand in it with my birds. Ultimately, my rat cages will hopefully be as big too, but I haven't figured out what to use for a floor for rat cages though. Newspaper works for birdcages and is easy to clean and cheap to replace. And birds wont eat it. Not sure what to do for rats yet.

[cuterat]

I love birds, but ratties are REALLY addicting! 
Whenever you see one it's like,  :poke:hey! :poke:bring me home! :poke:you know you want to!