Posted August 12, 200915 yr Well I'm getting excited but daunted by all the work that i have to do prior to Saturday...... sigh. The steps I have to set up for the breeding season are: 1. Empty out any remaining litter bedding etc from cabinets (I tend to shut down and leave the litter in the bottom of the cage - only empty out the nest boxes) 2. Full vacuum of all cabinets, nest boxes. 3. Warm soapy water wash of all cabinets and nest boxes. 4. Disinfectant spray - virkon S or similar anti-viral and antibacterial agent 5. Professional pack surface spray of all cabinets and nest boxes (use Mortien or similar 3 month active surface spray) 6. Add kitty litter to cabinet floors (have deep litter floors) 7. Add pine shavings to nest boxes 8. Add budgies So far I've got through steps 1 & 2 and am looking down the barrell of some hard slog to get through all that I need to before Saturday. But should manage okay, I hope. You can see the cabinet end of my breeding room with fronts off for easy access and the poor industrial vac that copped a flogging. And I'm not going to show the other side of my breeding room where the sink is piled up with containers ready for disinfecting....... Edited April 6, 201015 yr by KAZ
August 12, 200915 yr Author I have always had WAY better results in summer than winter. Mind you in the afternoon the aviary gets shade from 2 large trees, one on the southern side that overhangs and a huge one on the western side. It is also situated east west which you might think is horrible BUT down both sides of the flight area I have fully opening shutters so can catch any available breezes (sea breeze is Sw'ly so that works well). The breeding room part has mesh at the top joining the flight section (top right of the photo) and a double door (mesh and solid - to the left of the photo) which I leave open for air flow almost all year even if the shutters are fully closed due to inclement weather. Also have 2 whirly birds in room of the breeding room part. One day I'll do a photo expose of the whole setup for you. I run a small water cooler on days around the 38 degrees or more. I don't seem to have any problems with hatching etc during even the extreme heat whereas I have a lot of problems in winter with a huge 6x12m uninsulated shed trying to keep any heat in, hence breeding in summer. But even when we had a 3m x 3m gardern shed come birdie cooker I still had better results in summer. Edited August 12, 200915 yr by nubbly5
August 12, 200915 yr Damm thats a good setup. If you dont mind me asking what are your cabinets made out of?? im only wondering cause you said that you need to "soapy watter wash all the cabinets"
August 12, 200915 yr Looking at the boxes,they are Malamite,wil lbe a lot easy to clean.A spray with a good cleaner,& wipe over.
August 13, 200915 yr Author Yep malamite cabinets. Easy to clean but HEAVY. I use warm soapy water with scourer to remove any stuck on poo or stuff, then wipe with a clean sponge so that not too much moisture left to cause chipboard underneath to swell. Find these easier to work with than wire cages and they look nicer too.
August 13, 200915 yr Author eeeerrrmmm - not exactly. Notice I didn't take close up photos But looking way cleaner now. All boxes scrubbed out and disinfected plus 2/3 have been surface sprayed. Now just to surface spray the last 6 boxes so that those nasty little blood mites have NO chance of survival and then to add the kitty litter and pine to the cabinets and the pine shavings to the boxes and were off and running. YAY!
August 13, 200915 yr Very nice Gina. When do you breed through to? I'm going to give it up 1st week in December.
August 13, 200915 yr it is so good of you to share your regime with us it really helps to know what things im missing in doing for preparation can i ask do you run all cabinets together or do u stager breed also is morteen out door six month barrier spray safe ??? is that what you are saying you use this is good idea as if its safe for birds the spiders and all would stay well clear flys mossies the lot save heaps of money on coil strips and ect if i could just user that instead i would have thought it would harm them if they chewed the wood is this the time you start breeding every year ? thanks
August 13, 200915 yr Author I breed from Sept through to march and then have 6 months break - well the birds - not me All at once not staggered, as I like to have birds doing similar things at sinilar times for fostering reasons. GB the surface spray thing happened over some time and was a kind of progressive trial for me. I had a HUGE outbreak of blood mite and no matter what I did to treat the birds, the little buggers just kept coming back. After doing some reading up about the blood mites I realized that they live and lay their eggs off the bird in cracks and holes in the breeding cabinet and nest box. I started by spraying just with ordinary old fly spray with the chicks out of the box and then tentatively put them back in. That seemed fine for the chicks but the damn mites only died if you sprayed them directly and the fly spray didn't last long enough to kill the hatching baby mites. So I thought that surface spray might just work okay. Firstly I used the household surface spray cans. As I was in the middle of my breeding season I had chicks eggs etc all in boxes so first I took the box within the nest box out and sprayed and waited for it to dry. Put the chicks back - no problem. But mites were still in the box (within the nest box - box) so I held my hand over the next lot of chicks and sprayed - no problem with chicks at all even with wet surface spray inside the nest box and good result on mites. So now I use the professional pack every year prior to the start of breeding and spray all the cabinets and nest boxes inside after having done my disinfecting, paying particular attention to the joins in the boxes. I do leave it to dry though so that the birds don't get exposure to the wet surface spray but honestly when I sprayed directly in the box with chicks in it (hand over the chicks though) there was no affect on the chicks anyway. I have done this now for the last 3 years, and along with Ivermectin spot on treatment, have absolutely no signs of those horrible blood mites and no issue with the birds at all. This year I also surfaced sprayed all my perches in the flights and left them to dry before reintroducing birds as I was not 100% convinced that nasty red blood mites were not hiding in the joins between the perchs and the support timber.
August 13, 200915 yr GB the surface spray thing happened over some time and was a kind of progressive trial for me. So now I use the professional pack every year prior to the start of breeding and spray all the cabinets and nest boxes inside after having done my disinfecting, paying particular attention to the joins in the boxes. What brand is the professional pack? Don't you find a monthly regime of S76 does the trick also?
August 13, 200915 yr I breed from Sept through to march and then have 6 months break - well the birds - not me All at once not staggered, as I like to have birds doing similar things at sinilar times for fostering reasons. GB the surface spray thing happened over some time and was a kind of progressive trial for me. I had a HUGE outbreak of blood mite and no matter what I did to treat the birds, the little buggers just kept coming back. After doing some reading up about the blood mites I realized that they live and lay their eggs off the bird in cracks and holes in the breeding cabinet and nest box. I started by spraying just with ordinary old fly spray with the chicks out of the box and then tentatively put them back in. That seemed fine for the chicks but the damn mites only died if you sprayed them directly and the fly spray didn't last long enough to kill the hatching baby mites. So I thought that surface spray might just work okay. Firstly I used the household surface spray cans. As I was in the middle of my breeding season I had chicks eggs etc all in boxes so first I took the box within the nest box out and sprayed and waited for it to dry. Put the chicks back - no problem. But mites were still in the box (within the nest box - box) so I held my hand over the next lot of chicks and sprayed - no problem with chicks at all even with wet surface spray inside the nest box and good result on mites. So now I use the professional pack every year prior to the start of breeding and spray all the cabinets and nest boxes inside after having done my disinfecting, paying particular attention to the joins in the boxes. I do leave it to dry though so that the birds don't get exposure to the wet surface spray but honestly when I sprayed directly in the box with chicks in it (hand over the chicks though) there was no affect on the chicks anyway. I have done this now for the last 3 years, and along with Ivermectin spot on treatment, have absolutely no signs of those horrible blood mites and no issue with the birds at all. This year I also surfaced sprayed all my perches in the flights and left them to dry before reintroducing birds as I was not 100% convinced that nasty red blood mites were not hiding in the joins between the perchs and the support timber. i was wondering could you just flee bomb the birds room ????mine is only 2 meters by 3n half long if i just tossed in a flee bomb and let it rip would that do the job breeding boxes cleaned ect of course and left open ?
August 13, 200915 yr I do the whole cage with Chorahexidine and Ivometine before breeding season and then a 6 week spray of AIL.
August 14, 200915 yr Author I found AIL does not last long enough to deal with red mites as they hatch. Hence the longer acting surface spray which is also a synthetic pyrethroid like AIL but longer lasting. What is Ivometine? Are you meaning Ivermectin as in what's in Ivomec? Do you actually use this as a surface treatment? Chlorhexidine is a garden variety disinfectant and works well as an antibacterial but I'm not 100% convinced it's the best anti-viral agent out there. I used to use Virkon-S but have been using......ummm FS10 (something like that anyway). I check out how good these things are against Parvo virus which is a pretty resiliant virus. If it does Parvo well then I figure it's probably going to to Polyoma virus well too (but that could be complete rubbish in reality Polyoma may well be more resiliant than even Parvo virus).
August 14, 200915 yr I found AIL does not last long enough to deal with red mites as they hatch. Hence the longer acting surface spray which is also a synthetic pyrethroid like AIL but longer lasting. What is Ivometine? Are you meaning Ivermectin as in what's in Ivomec? Do you actually use this as a surface treatment? Chlorhexidine is a garden variety disinfectant and works well as an antibacterial but I'm not 100% convinced it's the best anti-viral agent out there. I used to use Virkon-S but have been using......ummm FS10 (something like that anyway). I check out how good these things are against Parvo virus which is a pretty resiliant virus. If it does Parvo well then I figure it's probably going to to Polyoma virus well too (but that could be complete rubbish in reality Polyoma may well be more resiliant than even Parvo virus). so where do you get all this stuff and can a flee bomb work the same????as the spray whats the sprays actual name
August 14, 200915 yr Author Sorry GB I have no idea if a flea bomb will have the same effect. This year I used defender 3L indoor surface spray - 3 month treatment. Bought from Bunnings. Purchased F10SC from the Nationals in Adelaide and have used it for the last 2 years but Virkon-S I used to buy through my local agricultural store (had to get them to order it in). I will buy F10SC again if I can get hold of some more - very economical and good anti-viral activity. Chlorhexidine is a common ingredient for industrial disinfectants under a few different brands.
August 15, 200915 yr Author Well all my pairs are down now. A couple more steps that I didn't mention. Clip sharp points off toenails. Trim feathers around vent. Put birds in cabinet. Will post pics soon.
August 15, 200915 yr Author okay a close-ish up picture of my cleaned and semi-prepped cabinet. I use kitty litter on the floor to absorb moist poops and scoop them out. Otherwise litter stays in until the end of the round. Pine shavings in the nest box, within the nest box. You can see the ventilation holes at the top right of the nest box. There are also holes along the back of the nest box at the bottom and the inside box has little runners to lift it off the floor and allow some ventilation underneath the box itself. Pair 1 installed! You can see the runners on the bottom of the nest box and the doors close leaving a gap at the bottom to allow ventilation. Very bsic record card has pair ID top left, date in cabinet (under dog clip), cabinet number top right, then 3 columns - Eggs, Chicks, Ring No - I enter and egg/chick swaps onto the card itself then do a reccy as chick fledge and get put into the nappy cages.
