Howdy,

 

I was on here a while ago then Dad started fiddling with our internet connection, then I forgot my password so yeah (Laughing out loud).

 

I've been researching cages and trying to figure out whether I want to buy one or make one for a while. then it sorta just fell into my lap (Laughing out loud).

 

A lost racing pigeon turned up about a week ago, she never returned home so we adopted her. I'd built the frame work for her dovecote whwn she decided to find her own roost. She now has a great little roost and is comforatble where she is, she always turns up for her feed so we decided not to cage her.

 

Which left me with the frame work for a rather large cage so It's now gonna be Rejys cage.

 

The framework is basically a rectangle measuring 125 cm (l) x 80 cm (h) x 60 cm (d) with a 30 cm (d) x 30 cm (h) x 125 cm (l) bit missing from it.

 

Heres some pics, Its made out of PVC pipe and is extremely strong, its still missing two connectors but i'll get those next time we are in town.

The front-

The side (you can see where the missing connectors should be)

the back (extra pieces added for strength)

 

The problem I have is what to cover it with, I was gonna use a large gauge wire, probably something like chicken wire, for the pigeon but Rejys quite a bit smaller then a pigeon so I gotta think of something new, i was thinking mouse wire might work? or the slightly larger gauge used in guinea pig and rabbit cages?

 

Anyone got any ideas?

 

Emma

 

P.S. Rejy will be getting a a friend as soon as we see the right male for her, so afr all we've found is females.

Make sure you don't use galvanized wire, it can cause lead poisoning if she chews on it. Other than that, just keep saftey in mind. Wish I could give you tips on the actual constructing but I'm really horrible at that type of thing.

What do you mean by galvanised wire? (Laughing out loud) I was just planning to use the wire you buy in rolls, didnt know one type or another could lead to posioning.

 

Emma

Ha just had a discussion with Dad and now i've got him interested, which basically means he'll pay for everything (Laughing out loud).

 

So the current idea stands as this,

 

The back and sides will be covered with a concrete weatherboard/insulation thing. We have them all over the place from when we built the house so that'll be fine. We then will paint the outside parts of the weatherboard to ensure it's entirely water proof, as the cage will be outside.

 

The roof will be made of colourbond which is basically corrugated metal that's used in roofing. It'll be done in an arch over the top so the cage will end up a bit larger then first thought. We alos ahve colourbond left over from the house.

 

The front will be made using Green powdercoated wire grid stuff, the distance inbetween the wires is about 1.25-1.75 cm. We'll also have a pice of very thin piping going from end to end at the front of the cage, from this the doors will "hang" They'll be made out of a tougher grid and will basically lift open, of course it'll have latches too. The wire grid is from Mums veggie garden, the thin pipe from when we built the house.

 

The bottom will be made of wire grid, this'll allow poops and thrown seeds to filter down onto the grass which will hopefully prevent any disease from Rejy living in poop (just a precaution) It'll also mean i won't ahve to clean cages (Laughing out loud).

 

The entire thing will have 4 PVC pipe "legs" which will hopefully have wheels at the end so we can easily roll the cage around. We have the wheels but need to get more piping and joiners.

 

What do you think? It'll be like a mini avairy when it's finished (Laughing out loud).

 

Emma

I'm not convinced that it's large enough to be a permanent home for a budgie (i'm assuming that seeing as it'll be outdoors there'll be no flight time). You'd still have to clean it because poop would get stuck on the wires.

We aren't able to give Rejy flight time. No matter how hard we've tried we can not finger tame her, otherwise I'd be happy with the cage she has now. i would love to gice her free flight, but even in her cage she gets scared whne I put a finger in, or if she dosn't get scared, she attacks my finger.

 

She is not the nicest budgie on earth, she loves chewing fingers and screeching at anything and everything.

 

This is the biggets acge we can give her. i don't exactly ahve that much money and all acges I've seen in pet stores are not suitable.

 

The only other thing I can do is this,

 

We are getting two sets of piggy cages sometime this week. This means I will be dismantling my C&C cage-

http://i55.photobucket.com/albums/g125/gli...06004resize.jpg

 

 

I can build a cage out of the grids, and then cover the whole hing in avairy wire to make it safe.

 

Doing that I could make a cage about 70 deep x 105 long x 70 high. I have no idea where I'd put it but thats the best I can do I may just be able to make a cage 70 x 70 x 140 but that's a stretch and I still ahve no idea where I'd put it.. Or i can give her one of the bays in the set of cages which is 100 long, 80 deep and 40 high.

 

We have a tonne of cages, all have piggies in them except for Rejy's cage, theres not much room on the verandah for another cage.

 

Generally building up is better than building along, so yeah, The cage would ahve to be outside and i dont think those wire grids can stand being outside.

 

Emma

 

 

Edit: Photo was too large and changed to link! 450 x 450 max Please

Edited May 26, 200618 yr by daz

So I've finally repayed Mum (borrowed some money off her a while ago) So now I can start saving money.

 

I'll be making this cage either way, simply for the practice I've never built something like this before. But I can save up for a proper cage for her. If I go through Ebay I should be able to get a reasonably priced cage.

 

So what size would you suggest? An avairies out of the question. If we gave her one it would be hidden somewhere where she would have almost no human contact, Rejy loves watching us, but we just dont have room around the house for something as big as an avairy. We may be able to fit a very small one in (like what the petshops call "avairies" or something up to about 1 x 1.5 m but that's as far as i can go

 

http://discountpetsupplies.com.au/product.php?pid=565 what about that? it wouldnt take me too long to get $200

 

Emma

Edited May 25, 200618 yr by Rejysmum

thats a nice cage. what is the bar spacing? 15mm is a little over 1/2 an inch, is that right?

 

just thinking outloud here, since she does not play nice with people, have you considered getting her a room mate? if so, that cage looks like it would fit 2 nicely. she might love having someone to interact with 24/7

http://www.birdandcage.com/flight.html check the 480 cage i think its the exact same one for less money...

Yup she's getting a friend

 

Mavicus- those cages are im american dollars, the site I gave is in AU, I cant get things from the USA. The Au one is actually cheaper.

 

Emma

Try for one with closer bar spacing if you can. I have lost two budgies through that kind of spacing. The size and type of cage you have picked is great though. Good luck with your cage endeavors.

mmm tahst the prob though, the only cages with close bar spacing are the teeny half a square foot "budgie" cages or the huge $400 finch aviarie,s there dosnt seem to be an inbewteen Bah.

 

Emma

Thats the EXACT cage i have. Same colour, size, model, shape e.t.c. GREAT BUY ! ! ! I have 6 in mine now, and they are comforatble, no fighting *yet* (Laughing out loud). Mine was $129.99, off of ebay from a dealer in Florida, about 8 weeks ago The dealerslisting is gone now, even though he owned a warhouse

 

Kirby

:ausb: I bought one of these for my guys and they love it to pieces (made a few modifications though)

 

http://cgi.ebay.com.au/No-7-TALLER-Bird-Pe...oQQcmdZViewItem

 

Not a bad price for it and the bar spacings are nice and small...

Cheers :beer:

Una

Heya Guys.

 

So I've got a tonne of grids to play with, avairy wire and corflute for a base.

 

Sooo what size would be best for two budgies?

 

I was thinking of doing a cage 105 cm long, 70 cm high and 70 cm deep.

 

The biggest I can do is 140 x 70 x 70, the prblem with a cage this size is part of it will have direct sunlight for an hour or two a day..

 

I'm gonna srtar building now.

 

The idea would be to use the grids, wrap it with 12 mm avairy wire and add in two large doors and two small ones for feed bowls. The cage would have its own wire base and sit in a corflute tray, so to clean out you take off the base and clena and scrub it then clean the inside of the cage, making it fairly simple.

 

I've done a major rearrangment of pigger cages and i now have room for a larger cage under cover.

 

 

So is that size okay? cos I'm gonna start building now (Laughing out loud)

 

Emma

Sounds good Emma. You are working with what you have and making improvements. You have been thinking it through and with suggestions have come up with what should work. Good luck with your building project....

Sigh okay now my fingers are killing me, cable ties are not nice to my poor wee fingys (Laughing out loud).

 

I'm just gonna snap a picture but I have all sides together except for the front.

 

I ended up having to make it all slightly smaller to add some strength and tomorrow I'll make the front with its doors ect.

 

Emma

 

Measurements are 140 cm long, 62 high and 62 deep. Which makes the whole cage about 20 cubic feet.

 

Looks pretty boring now (Laughing out loud), More like a rabbit cage then a budgie cage-

 

Emma

Edited May 30, 200618 yr by Rejysmum

I'm still working hard but now the inside is lined with avairy wire. now I gotta do the front (Laughing out loud).

 

I've contacted some people who had adds on Petlink and it looks like I may be getting a grey baby male Yay (Laughing out loud).

 

mukm wnats to check out the pet store first she's rather wary of backyard breeders (have had some seriously ill pigggers before)

 

Emma

(Laughing out loud), just had a talk with Mum and we've decided not to put the feed doors in, so the cage is officially complete. It looks so bare with Rejys spare toys and perch in there (Laughing out loud), I think it's time for a shopping spree (Laughing out loud).

 

All nicely lined with avairy wire-

 

A close up of the avairy wire and grids

 

The solid part of the front is lined and in

 

The cut pieces of avairy wire and the grids to make the doors-

 

All joined together-

 

The door is on

 

The bottom doors are complete-

 

Whole cage complete, lined with newspaper and toys added. obviously it needs more but later (Laughing out loud). Rejy will be going in at the same time as her new friend in the hope she dosn't get too evil.

 

So in the end i used-

40 grids

5m of avairy wire

about 300 cable ties

 

I sacrificed-

My arms, feet and knees to the evil wire

 

And it took me three afternoons to complete.

 

Not bad (Laughing out loud).

 

Emma

So what do you think?

 

Emma

A lot of hard work for a decent amount of space for your budgies. Good job

Hey, how many budgies do you think could go in there? just a pair or maybe a trio?

 

Thanks

Emma

I would say 2-4, probably 2 would be best cause was it you who said they didn't get much flight time? You've done a good job!

Oky doky thanks. I was thinking 2 or 3. Cos I can't give them flight time beacuse of my Mum.

 

Rejy is in the cage and isn't doing much. She's climbing around but dosn't seem to know how to fly oh well she should figure it out soon. Her fave toy is hung just out of reach of her perch and shes been flapping her wings and trying to figure out how to get across, so maybe she'll figure out she can fly soon (Laughing out loud).

 

Emma