Getting prepared...

Hi all,
You may remember me from a previous post where I'm trying to decide between a Greenwing and Blue and Gold macaw.

Bird Choice:
So far, online the majority of recommendations have been Greenwings, whereas people I've talked to in person have said Blue and Gold! Weird, but anyway... (If you'd like to make a suggestion, check out my post/poll http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/19219-cant-decide-blue-gold-greenwing-macaw.html)
We've started taking a step towards getting everything ready and in place.
Our mini macaw was confirmed from the beginning - getting a little Hahns - we missed the batch from earlier this year, but that's OK; the breeder said the new batch will be ready in November-December which is PERFECT for me as I have a 2 month break with no teaching!
(Note, we've decided that we can have them out at the same time, but kept away from each other. We'll trial the big and mini macaw together, but we aren't betting on them getting along)

Cages
Had a talk with an aviary who special-ises (word got censored) in custom-made cages, and he's going to give us a call when he finishes his current design for another client (to be used as a sun-cage). I'll post pics when it's done for views/recommendations.
Our indoor cage is uncertain, but we've found one in the UK that will cost about $2.5k all up, including shipping which looks great.
I've had no luck finding a cage for my Hahn's - some close options, but nothing desirable yet. Will need to look online.

House Safety
Did a rummage through the kitchen and checked ALL of our non-stick cookware. All are PTFE and PFOA free; and the one's that are old/we don't know manufacturer of will be thrown out/replaced.
Bookcase will be covered with a clear plastic (will post prototype pictures of the plan)
Figurines/breakables will be moved into display cabinets.
Stained wood lids for the fish tanks will have a thick/heavy clear plastic throw over the top.
I'm doing a check throughout the house and putting those child-safe plugs over the electric sockets. We're thinking of getting a plastic wrap/protection for all electrical cables as well.
Partner is banned from spraying his deodorant in the house. All scented tissues will be for the bedroom only. (I get colds frequently, and the eucalyptus ones help clear my nose very quickly)
No smelly trees in car.
Toilet door is to remain closed (spray of air purifier and risk of open toilet fall-ins)

Travel
Have four locations for looking after the guys when I go away* on conferences:
One - with a local who is also a macaw owner
Two - about 30 min flight/4 hour drive up North to a rainforest retreat
Three - Bird Boarding at Parrot Rescue Centre (Parrot Rescue Centre | Caring for Parrots in Australia)
Four - at a local aviary
* note - this is only if my partner is unable to look after my guys; otherwise if he is comfortable enough with them, then they will stay with him at home
Need to get shipping/bird cage.

Local Travel
Perch and Go for Hahns: Perch and Go Polycarbonate Bird Carrier
CS4 for Macaw: Crystal Shuttle Acrylic Pet Travel Carriers to Transport Parrot, Parakeet, Macaw, Cockateil, Conure, Cockatoo, African Gray :: Crystal Flight
These will be used for vet visits and tri-weekly visits with me to university. I'm working on clearing out space in my office for one of the Java playtops; but that's a mid-year holiday project after all the students head home

Vet Care
Contacted all the vets around town - we do NOT have an Avian Vet sadly. The closest is 1300km away. There are two vets though that have an interest in avian medicine, so I'll meet and chat with them when I get my guys. I'm interested in how they respond to a bird and handle it, as well as their medical/professional opinion.
Yearly checkups will be $65 to $130 a year
All birds will be micro-chipped. And registered with the local council (their rego costs is $145 for three years)
There are NO companies in Australia that offer Avian Health Insurance. Remmingtons offers theft and fire insurance at $30 per month per $1000 the bird is worth (Hahns is $1200, Blue and Gold is $5500 and Greenwing is $13000); I discussed this with my partner and we are leaning away from it. In my mind, the macaws will be like children, and assessing them "monetarily" is a bit.. eh... to me, it'd be like if your child died and the government handing you money and saying "Go out and buy a new one". :\ You may be able to replace the "bird" per say, but you can't replace that particular bird that you raised, loved and cared for. (On that note, we will have a security system set up for them regardless for me to monitor them when I am at work and also from my mobile if I am out of the house)
I'm going to set up a bank account for them that I'll deposit about $30-50 in each week for emergency medical bills. Going off the principle of $30 per 52 weeks, that should give me about $1500 to spend on vet care each year. And given it's emergency funds, then it should just keep getting topped up if it's not used.

TOYS!!!
Starting July, I'm going to start stocking up on TOYYSSS~~~~!!! They're so exciting.
Natural Toys: PRC Online Shop l Parrot Toys and Accessories in Australia
(I'm going to be big on natural toys. We have palms to put in their cage, and heaps of trees. (Can anyone give me opinions on Bottlebrush trees, Eucalyptus trees and Gum Trees? I know they're fine with our native parrots, but any experience with the exotics?)
Foraging Toys: PRC Online Shop l Parrot Toys and Accessories in Australia
Foot Toys: PRC Online Shop l Parrot Toys and Accessories in Australia
We plan to get some from ParrotShop as well. PRC we are happy to support though due to the work they do with re-homing and looking after abandoned/orphaned parrots.
The inner nerd in me is also tempted to write a basic computer program/interface as a "toy/entertainment tool". I heard that Alex the African Grey whom Irene Pepperberg did research on had a computer program that played videos, music, etc. I'd be interested in seeing if I could write a program myself that looks at that. (Supervised, of course - would only be with me at university) If however my macaws are more interested in destroying toys, then they'll just get more of those instead and I'll abandon the idea XD

Cleaning
Need to find parrot safe-cleaning products!!! Right now I have no idea what's good and what's not. Right now, we're going to work of the principle of if we have to clean, then we'll put them outside while doing so.
Looking at getting an air purifier; Roomba and a Scooba. The Roombas are fine with birds as far as I am aware, but has anyone had experience with the Scooba? They wash floors but I'm not sure what they use.
iRobot: Scooba® Hard Floor Cleaner, Natural Enzyme Formula
This is the cleaner that goes in the Scooba. Without an MSDS I can't be sure. I'll need to email the company to find out. iRobot claims it's pet safe, but birds are more sensitive to those kind of products in comparison to cats/dogs.
User suggestions:
Hot water with lemon or vinegar
Laying a hot/warm cloth over branches/toys to help soften and wipe off mess

Training
Picked up a copy of "Don't Shoot the Dog", also checking out the resources of Good Bird Inc. We are planning on attending the workshops by Dr Susan Friedman or Steve Martin of Natural Encounters. Have been told to avoid Birdtricks.com

Emergency Evacuation

Alisana said:

Train and Prepare for Evacuation Situations Re: http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/...red-friends-kitchen-fire-mini-evacuation.html

- Fire
- Flooding
- Cyclones
- Evacuation
- Sickness/Quarantine
- Any emergency situation

Click to expand...

Ensure to have a overnight cage on hand in the event of sickness or needing quarantine; handy as well for evacuation situations. The Evacuation cage should be simple to pack/move for ease of transport. With regards to training; Get birds very use to being able to go in and out of travel cages and overnight cages. Experiment with a variety of different situations where it can be a calm, or loud (e.g. alarm going off). Apply heaps of encouragement and positive reinforcement.

Food
Priam Australia - PPC Evolving Aviculture Looking at either Harrisons or Pretty Bird as a Pellet Option. (Recommendations?)
Fruit - most fruit will be grown in the backyard: dragonfruit, mandarins, coconuts, chilis (large and small), oranges, lemons, grapefruit and kumquat. We do have palm nuts occasionally as well, but unsure of breed of palm tree. I've been told to avoid "Fish tail palms" - are they bad?

Alarms
Install a Carbon Monoxide Alarm: http://www.bunnings.com.au/products...er=categoryname--Carbon+Monoxide+Smoke+Alarms

Phew. I think I'll leave it there for now. Off to sleep. Feel free to add to my list of what I need. There are no doubt more, some considered, some not. It's the one's I've NOT considered that I'm interested in! I want to make sure we do everything RIGHT from the moment our macaw/s grace through our doors. Goodnight all!

Love to see your check list and glad your doing your homework.
As far as cleaning products, I use hot water with fresh lemons. This really works nice for me.
I place towels in my sink in really hot water, add lemons, then I place the towel inside the cages on the bottom, perches, hang them down the sides. this does two thing, makes all crusty food, waste from the birds lose enough to just wipe off with no hard scrubbing, and with the lemons, it really cleans well and smells great. Once all the food and waste is clean, I go back with another clean hot towel and wipe everything down. The cleaning time per cage is approx 20 min.
Be very careful when it comes to cages, there are lots of cages for sale, please stay away from cages made in asian countries, these cages are normally not made from bird safe paints or powder coatings, woods that are treated with chem that are harmful to deadly for birds. If you can find the brand (KING CAGES) is the best choice here.
If you are building your own cage, use stainless steel only.
If you are building an outdoor Aviary, again use stainless steel fencing, concrete base so critters or snakes cannot craw under the fencing, use plastic roof, this way dropping from wild birds does not get into the aviary, this can be deadly to Macaws.

You have a great understanding on what it takes to care for birds in general, the thing that you may struggle with, is the bonding process.

If your Mini Macaw and B&G or GW Macaws are young enough, you have a great chance of them getting along but like you stated, keep them far enough away from one another when outside the cage. Both my boys get along pretty well although I would not trust them close together.

I hope the best for you and can't wait to see pics. Best of luck Joe

Hi,
I love your checklist and have gone through a lot of it before myself. I also threw out pots, pans anything that was questionable when I got my Cockatoos. Never can be too safe !
I admire your precautions , stained wood isn't so something we think about right away , so kudos to you . I also thought about Pet insurance for my guys too. We are thinking of gettig it for all three of our fids.
We never thought of the insurance though , that's something to think about for sure.
Your right on , stay away , far away from what you have mentioned in your training paragraph . Don't Shoot The Dog is a wonderful book, you will enjoy it
I go back to it from time to time when I have a issue with a trainee.
You may want to look up Chris Biro of Liberty Wings. He does free flight but what I'm suggesting is some of his training for young birds done in the home. Just another idea for you to check out if your interested . You are on the right track for sure
Good luck and post pictures

Great to see the homework that you have done!!

We have a B&G that is about 2.5 years old. The learning continues to this day.

Similar to having a 3 or 4 year old child. Always testing to see what he can get away with each day!!

Best of luck and keep us posted regarding your progress and decisions!!

I had a chat today with some of the staff that sell the iRobot Scooba. Apparently some people put vinegar in their machine instead of the cleaning solution.
Anyone had experience with this?

Also - so people can see, this was the cage I was looking at getting for my Hahns originally:

A friend pointed out that the under-playpen area is too dark and chances are the bird may not want to use it and would spend most of it's time up in the narrow top part so that it's higher/brighter.
I'm still looking though.

On cleaning products, usually hot water is enough, but vinegar/apple cider vinegar is good to use as a natural disinfectant (i have never used this in a machine though).

and i also think that any bird you put in those cages would mostly use the top part to be as high up as possible, and effectively makes their 'cage' that they use quite small if they do...

Oedipussrex said:

On cleaning products, usually hot water is enough, but vinegar/apple cider vinegar is good to use as a natural disinfectant (i have never used this in a machine though).

and i also think that any bird you put in those cages would mostly use the top part to be as high up as possible, and effectively makes their 'cage' that they use quite small if they do...

Click to expand...

I'm finding it hard/frustrating to find a decent sized cage for my mini-macaw. All the cages I've seen thus far (with appropriate bar spacing) are what I consider a "budgie cage". (ie, too small...)

The cages which are big enough, the spacing is too large. But the cages are too small for a large macaw. I can't seem to win.

Alisana said:

Oedipussrex said:

On cleaning products, usually hot water is enough, but vinegar/apple cider vinegar is good to use as a natural disinfectant (i have never used this in a machine though).

and i also think that any bird you put in those cages would mostly use the top part to be as high up as possible, and effectively makes their 'cage' that they use quite small if they do...

Click to expand...

I'm finding it hard/frustrating to find a decent sized cage for my mini-macaw. All the cages I've seen thus far (with appropriate bar spacing) are what I consider a "budgie cage". (ie, too small...)

The cages which are big enough, the spacing is too large. But the cages are too small for a large macaw. I can't seem to win.

Click to expand...

:/ that is a common problem. i have been looking for a 'large' budgie cage, but you cant get any bigger than ugly flight cages suitable only really for breeding pairs, or large aviaries (i just want a nice, inside cage on a stand ), until the bar spacing is wayy too large. all i can say is shop around. i got my ekkie's cage from ebay and its perfect, although the bar spacing is absolutely the widest i would be comfortable giving him...

I had my earlier message typed up before and forgot to hit post XD

So - just finished sketching up one of the designs for our "outdoor/sun cage"



I'm not very good at using SketchUp (first time using the program), but when I'm done I'll probably generate a proper 3D model.

The mesh will be the grid style, 25mmx25mm spacing. I'll be getting it powder coated - I had a chat with the owner of the powder-coating business and I asked them about Zinc. They said that the primer, which prevents rust contains zinc, but the powder-coat itself didn't. If I get a stainless steel cage, then powder-coat it (thinking black, easier to see the birds, but white/grey/silver for the shade sections) without primer, I should be OK. The company has test kits so can do a test run with some scrap metal before doing the whole cage.

Quick overview of the sun-cage:
Want something that is cat/dog/(hopefully?)hawk secure. (We're planning on using cat mesh and depending on price, zoo mesh to set up a free flight area in the backyard - plans for that later down the track though, first focus is cage) This is something where we can put them out in the yard while having breakfast/lunch without being paranoid every second to check their location.
It is 2.2m high and 2.4m long. The bottom part will be a solid sheet that is 600mm high with a 15, maybe 20mm lip to stop snakes from sliding up. This goes around the entire cage. (My SketchUp skills couldn't do this though)
The left, back and right walls will have sheet that comes about 500mm down, leaving the front open for viewing. Half of the cage will be shaded along the top (1100mm x 2400mm). We will most likely end up using shade-cloth for the other half, and I'm considering having a pull down shade-cloth on the front for really hot days. (Not that we plan to put it directly in the sun, but just in case)
The entrance is a full walk in. 900mm W x 2200mm H. This stops bending of the head, so you can keep eye contact with the birds at all times (stops them from flying over your head when you duck down to go through the entrance)
We're thinking of having some hanging toys, thick ropes and palm leaves throughout it.

Post thoughts.

Edit: Oh yeah. And this cage can be assembled in the space of 30-40 minutes. So easy of if I ever need to move XD I should add as well that there will be triple locks on the door. Top, middle and bottom.

And adding again: this cage is expandable. You can add an arch to another cage so you have two together. The door openings can be propped open or removed inside the connecting arch.

See figure below.

Forgot to add the depth of the cage.

Dimensions are:
2.2m high x 2.4m long x 2.1m deep

Alisana said:

Forgot to add the depth of the cage.

Dimensions are:
2.2m high x 2.4m long x 2.1m deep

Click to expand...

I sent the cage design to the breeder and they recommended to reassess the depth of the cage to allow room for the tail. On that point, would 2.4 be adequate? (The metal mesh comes in 1.2m2 sheets)

Post pics! About Pet Insurance, maybe consider getting a vet discount program, like United Pet Care or Pet Assure - instead of (or in addition to) pet insurance. They usually have lower premiums and a lot less (if any) exclusions...

Added to list:

Train and Prepare for Evacuation Situations Re: http://www.parrotforums.com/macaws/...red-friends-kitchen-fire-mini-evacuation.html

- Fire
- Flooding
- Cyclones
- Evacuation
- Any emergency situation

Lots of prep, looks like we are in the same boat at the moment. :) I am preparing for my B&G who is coming home in about 2-3 months. Just curious, where are you getting your cage from in the UK? I have looked at importing, but could not find a viable option. I have purchased this cage for now, it as about $500 and the divider comes out. I hope to get something better once I can find it!

Alisana said:

I had a chat today with some of the staff that sell the iRobot Scooba. Apparently some people put vinegar in their machine instead of the cleaning solution.
Anyone had experience with this?

Click to expand...

Not for bird reasons but..... I use White Vinegar in my dish washer instead of rinse aid, as a fabric softener in the washing machine and I also use it diluted in my iron. It works better then the proper softener and rinse aid and it also cleans the machines, stops limescale/calcification. (our water is really bad for that here in Western australia) Plus its much cheaper..

bumblegum said:

Lots of prep, looks like we are in the same boat at the moment. :) I am preparing for my B&G who is coming home in about 2-3 months. Just curious, where are you getting your cage from in the UK? I have looked at importing, but could not find a viable option. I have purchased this cage for now, it as about $500 and the divider comes out. I hope to get something better once I can find it!

[Image Removed]

Click to expand...

We haven't picked our indor cage yet, but our friends were the ones who suggested the UK cage. They shipped it in a crate I believe, so it saved on costs in that regard. I'll have to ask them exactly where I got from.

I'm trying to get something like the one you posted, but longer I've seen that cage in person, and my belief is that it's big enough for one macaw, but not two. Especially after you fill it with toys. The length of the tail is something to be aware of as well.

The diagrams I had on my earlier posts were for an outdoor sun cage. Not sure if you were referring to those or the one I mentioned in my first post. ^^; hehe

Just came across this thread:
http://www.parrotforums.com/general-parrot-information/12857-top-10-hazards-companion-birds.html
Very good points to be aware of.

Going to invest in one of these now: QUELL Carbon Monoxide Alarm - Bunnings Warehouse