I am in the midst of construction of my avairy and I was going to paint it but was told by a friend that the paint will harm my birds. I didn't tell the friend what kind of paint so I don't know how they could know.

 

Anyway, it is Wattyl Solagard Low Sheen paint. Will this be okay? I am wanting to waterproof the cage as it will be outside.

 

Any advice will be much appreciated!

 

Simon

There are very few paints that are safe for birds, so your friend is right to express concern. Some childsafe paints may be okay. But you will need to research. Birds chew so they would have access to the paint. Also, you say aviary and you say cage....which is it ?

Sorry, didn't notice that. It is an aviary.

 

I've tried to research wether the wattyl stuff is okay but I'm not having much luck. My dad has years of experience in keeping birds and he thinks they should be okay.

 

I just read on the paint can that the paint is suitable for surfaces used for water collection. If its okay for that, surely it'd be okay for birds. It does have a bit that says keep out of reach of children though. But wouldn't they all have that?

 

Help!?!

What design is the aviary ? Is there a way to keep the birds away from the painted parts ?

I'd be leaning towards no... Not safe for children=not safe for birds in my book... but that me. Most budgies will chew anything and everything. I used to have a wooden divider in my aviary and they chewed it to pieces in no time. Can you just paint the outside to weather proof it as you say and leave the inside raw. I'm assuming you're using a budgie safe wood too yeah?

Acrylic paints such as Wattyl Solagard Low Sheen are okay. I used this on the inside of my breeding cages and never had any issues with it.

 

In fact in the times that I had and bred birds, I do not ever recall having a sick bird.

Paints use to include lead in their manufacturing process and this is why they were unsuitable for certain uses. Lead based paints were banned quite a number of years ago. A paint as mention by Simon for water collection should be okay. If one emails the respective manufacture they would be able to inform you further of the constiuents of the various paints. Google the company name and look for the pages (if they have them listed) containing their MSDS (Material Safety Data Sheets). Here is Wattyl's http://www.wattyl.com.au/library/Pages/MSDSLibrary.aspx

um is it nessesary to have paint that is budgie safe? I painted mine about a year ago with the stuff we painted our shed with (i have no idea what its called) and have never had any problems...