Hello from California

[None505]

Hi everyone, I just found this site a few days ago and figured I would join to ask some questions about housing my Lovebirds outdoors. I love pretty much all animals except isopods & worms however I do respect them even though they creep me out. I have dogs, cats, birds, fish, rats, inverts and reptiles. I have 4 Pigeons, 2 Cockatiels and 2 Masked Lovebirds plus my family has 13 Chickens. My friend is giving me 2 more Cockatiels and some sort of small dove soon. After that I hope to not add anymore critters to my group for a while. My non-animal interests are books, music and plants. Some of my favorite authors are Ted Dekker, Robert Ludlum and Dead Koontz and a few of my favorite bands are Demon Hunter, Impending Doom and Killswich Engage. That's all I can think of to say right now as it is late and I am tired.

 

[thekarens]

I don't have any experience with outdoor aviaries, but I wanted to say welcome! I'm also a Dekker fan

 

[Ducatimom]

Welcome! Is it possible we could have been twins in another life ? :smile007:
I love Dean Koontz as well as James Patterson. Our judge when we got married was even named James Patterson. I wouldn't have anybody else do it lol. I would love to add more to our little zoo, but our house isn't big enough and I think my husband would go insane if I brought another critter home.

Anyways, welcome to the forum! Can't wait to hear more stories about your little group and pictures are always greatly appreciated here.

 

[Allee]

Welcome to the forum! Could you tell us about your future outdoor set up for your masked lovebirds? What is your climate like, what kind of predators would be a concern?

We would love to see photos of your friends and hear more about them.

I'm also a fan of Dean Koontz.

 

[None505]

Thanks, everyone. My mom's boss gave her a cage that was sitting in his warehouse and my mom offered it to me. The cage is 9' long by 2' deep by 3' tall and it is on 3' or 4' tall legs. I live in the high desert in California and it gets into the 100s for a little in the summer and it gets cold enough to have snow for a few days in the winter. What I was thinking about doing to the cage was making 1/3 of it into a wood box with a heat source and putting a roof on the rest of it. I thought of rigging up misters for the summer to cool them off. I am really hoping this will work because my lovebirds came from a aviary then went to a very stressful home in a tiny cage and not really interacted with before coming to me. I have had them for a over a year and even though they are a little better they are still very stressed being around people. I plan on building a 12'x4'x7' cage with the last 4' being a enclosed area with heat but I can't do that yet. The only predators would be Coyotes, owls, hawks, foxes and one stray cat. The cat does not go near where the birds would be going because of my mom's dogs and it has not messed with my Pigeons anyways. The Coyotes have never come into our yard and I don't think they would mess with the Lovebirds even if they did. The hawks stay away since there is a family of ravens who lives in the next yard over and they attack the hawks plus the roof on the cage would keep the hawks from seeing the lovebirds from above. The owls could be a problem but they have never messed with my Pigeons and the lovebirds would hopefully sleep in the enclosed part of the cage. The stray cat does not come near where the birds would be because it is afraid of my mom's dogs. We did have a fox try to get into our chicken pen with the Roosters but I don't think foxes would bother with the Lovebirds since they are up off the ground and my mom's dogs would alert us if it did try. Does that seem workable?