Indoor aviary/enclosure questions

[RavensGryf]

I’m thinking that a larger space (aviary) would actually be less tedious and easier to clean than individual cages and grates. You could spray the floor, and then floor squeegee it? Then use a long handled duster in needed areas. Then go and remove random poops on branches and such. More like wide sweeping motions to clean, rather than all the tedium of cages.

Since I’ve taken over my elderly mom’s two birds a while ago, I hate to say, but it really seems like two too many, and it’s really wearing on me. eek: help!) I do feel obligated to keep them, and besides that, I love them so it would break my heart to rehome them. But I feel past my personal limit with cleaning cages. The keets are in double flight cages, so that means double trays and grates. I know many people have many more birds than I do, and don’t mind all the cleaning. I do make sure they are always acceptably clean, but that is what is making me unhappy. It feels like I’m always cleaning too many cages, and I hate it. I don’t always feel like doing it, and it’s very time consuming in my already busy life.

For many years, I never had more than 3 parrots at any given time. Then when I got the budgies, I had no idea how much messier the ‘parakeets’ were as compared to other Psittacines. My parrots do cause mess of course, but never as quickly as the parakeets. That put me at my absolute max! Then my when my mom could no longer care for her two, it was only me who could take them.

Okay. I’m near done complaining.

I’m really leaning towards the indoor aviary, and pretty set on making it happen. The 4 keets are SO messy that I can’t stand it anymore. They poop more often and molt more often than the other birds. Small size does not always mean smaller mess. These cute little guys are filthy!

The parakeets are (1 Princess of Wales, 1 Bourke’s, 2 budgies). There would be a simple divider since although smaller, budgies can be more aggressive. The POW and Bourke’s live peacefully in the same flight cage now.

It would be a walk in aviary, in a smaller size that would fit into a living room without looking ridiculous. Not a large flight cage, but big enough to be an aviary with an actual floor instead of tray and grate.

So now tell me; if you’ve had experience with an indoor enclosure, what do you think about ease of cleaning? What is on the bottom? Concrete? Linoleum? Substrate of some sort? Then how do you clean it? Do you feel it’s a bit easier than the tedium of individual cages?

We’re doing some home repairs, so this seems like it’s not priority, but in a way it really is!

After the parakeets living quarters are done, I’ll think of something for Raven and Griffin who need more out of cage flight time. My precious old Robin doesn’t fly, and hates the others, so he’s fine as is.

 

[ChristaNL]

You are not alone in anything but enjoying the cleaning!

Japie has the habbit of nagging for attention while upright clutching the inside corners and crapping al allong the cage-parts there. His "droppings" are downdripping smears all over (or end up outside the cage alltogether) landing everywhere but the layers and layers of paper on the cagefloor.

I am looking at indoor-aviaries for almost the same reasons (that and the macawcage is really too small if she ever decides to keep her flightfeathers).

You can get sheets trespa (hard, durable plasticky material), that can be sawn (?)sawed and screwed&glued to form a huge boxshape to keep everything contained (if you use the right glue it is even watertight - just be carefull with heat -> it will warp) or just use flat of course.
Of course any kind of smooth floor material will do, just add some sort of (removable) skirting- unless you like it getting all over the house.

Layers of paper can help (or sometimes hinder).

 

[RavensGryf]

Thanks Christa! Good idea to build a box style bottom, or get some sort of skirting around the edges! No.. I sure don’t want debris all over the house, the way it gets now!

Ugh, I do feel for you with Japie pooping while clinging to the corners! Now THAT is a cleaning nightmare for sure!

 

[Sandy19]

I made my husband build this little porch before I would agree to get a bird. So this is Peanut's aviary. No way was I going to keep a bird in a cage all day or roaming around my house crapping all over everything every 10 minutes. This worked out perfectly. It's easy to clean too, I just spray vinegar and water on the bird poop, let it sit for a few minutes and then it wipes right up. It's still like that move Groundhog's Day though where you have to do it every day, day after day.

 

[EllenD]

I have a huge walk-in aviary that I built for my English/American Budgies in the walk-out floor of my house years ago. I have 8 Budgies that live in it now that are my pets, and were bred/hand-raised by me, but prior I had several breeders living in it, who are now living in a sanctuary since I no longer breed. So I moved my 8 tame Budgies into it from their previous huge flight cage. I find the aviary much easier than the huge flight cage...

I have a 3-story, split-level house, the main living floor is on the second floor, and the bedrooms/bath/office on the third floor. The first floor/walk-out floor is all ceramic tile, and consists of a main "foyer" area that has a wood stove and then many closets; then there is a laundry room/half-bathroom, and then a large front room that I use as an exercise room, and that's where the aviary is. I built it right into the side of one wall, the longest wall, so it's a little over 10 feet long, about 4 feet wide, and about 7 feet high (it goes to the ceiling)...I built the panels right into the studs in the wall, and allowed the ceramic tile to be the floor for very easy clean-up. I built a back wall to the aviary against the actual painted wall, as well as one on the end (the other end is mesh)...It's amazingly easy to clean as long as you do it at least once or twice a week. The only part that can get tedious is cleaning the individual branches, as there are a ton of natural branches that they use as perches. They love it, especially when I turn on the 56" long heat lamps that I installed on the ceiling, so it creates a "warm end", and then they have a "cool end" that isn't under the heat lamps. I have the heat lamps covered with a safety shield so that they can't get anywhere near the bulbs, and it's on a thermostat. As far as the floor goes, a lot of the time I put down newspapers and just change them out once or twice a week (free newspapers at the convenience store, like the Bargain Sheet and AutoTrader), and if not, it's extremely easy to just clean up from the ceramic tile with white vinegar mixed with hot water and a floor mop. They come upstairs with me for at least a few hours each day anyway, while the 4 larger birds are in their cages eating, so it's pretty easy to maintain, and when they're upstairs they all hang out on a huge PVC play-gym that is sitting on a wooden platform I built for it, and is on top of newspaper too. So they are really good about flying straight up to the play-gym and back downstairs to the aviary whenever I open the door either direction. It's made life a lot easier for both me and for the Budgies, they love it, they get to fly around all day inside of it, they play with their toys, get themselves all crazy, and chase each other, it's very healthy for them, and I much prefer it to the large flight cage for so many Budgies...

 

[chris-md]

I’m contemplating the same thing for Parker. His got a decent sized cage, but something walk in would be so much easier to clean I believe. Let us know how this progresses!

 

[Scott]

I understand your dilemma and urge to fix, Julie. Used to house my wild-caught parent Goffins in a large walk-in wire mesh aviary with door. The bottom was lined with newspaper and they never flew down to tear or play. Some debris was kicked outside, but they were neat and didn't cling to the side frequently to projectile poop! (My amazon lives to do that!) Don't have it anymore, but IIRC was about 7' long, 4' wide, and about 6' high.

 

[PCash]

I'd love to see pictures if possible. I don't have a separate birdroom, and love that I can move my cages to clean around them, but I can see an aviary giving so much more room and being easier. I'm always curious to see what they look like though. I don't have an entire porch I can devote to my birds, though if I could, gosh that'd be amazing. So, pictures please?

 

[Owlet]

At the store what we do is use a scrapper thing to scrape up any poop that has dried to the floor, then we sweep it all up. Once that's done we mop up anything that remains. For the mop we just use hot water and dawn dish soap. It's just tile at the bottom.

 

[EllenD]

At the store what we do is use a scrapper thing to scrape up any poop that has dried to the floor, then we sweep it all up. Once that's done we mop up anything that remains. For the mop we just use hot water and dawn dish soap. It's just tile at the bottom.

I have a plastic scraper thing on a broomstick that I think I bought at Lowes or Home Depot...I bought it originally to use on the garage floor, but I've ended-up using it on the floor of the aviary more than anything else, works great...

I'll snap some photos of it when I get home and post them for you...

 

[RavensGryf]

The scraper would definitely need a long handle! I’m not kneeling down to get every poop lol... that would be as tedious as grate cleaning!

Sandy, that porch looks awesome, wow! We don’t have any room left in the yard. In the 1970’s, my parents got this house added on, which took up a good portion of the yard as it is. This is the SoCal suburbs. Anyone familiar with OC/LA area knows there are a ton of houses close together with small yards! I already wish the yard was bigger for the dog.

That add on is the first part of the house we’re fixing. Maybe the entire thing can become an enclosure? Hmm..

PCash, google walk-in aviary. Some are too big for indoors, but I would want a smaller one of course. We’re considering building one to save money.

I don’t like the “bird room” idea in a separate bedroom. They are too isolated in there. They ideally need more interaction in the living room, with an additional fence or some sort to keep my dog from getting too close.

 

[Owlet]

Yeah, not sure what the scrapper thing we use is originally intended for but it has a looong handle. Same length as a normal sized broom really.

https://www.zoro.com/kraft-tool-flo...jkbVHoKMraAIjnJf3W4dZ7aXsvqw3g8AaAiBHEALw_wcB

Not the exact thing but close enough.

 

[RavensGryf]

Owlet, that thing looks perfect.

 

[RavensGryf]

What sort of flooring would you use for species that are on the ground a lot? The grass parakeet species naturally forage and walk on the ground. I want the floor easy to clean, yet where the birds won’t walk in poop and transfer it all over to the branches and perches when they fly up. Obviously, a little is unavoidable, but I’d like it where it is kept to a minimum.

Seems the floor would need some type of substrate, yet that seems messy in the house. This is a hard one. I can’t think of any solution for this! More commonly, grass parakeets are housed in outdoor aviaries, but that’s not an option here. It would need to be a fairly large walk in aviary indoors.

The only thing I can possibly think of, would be to make the aviary large enough; and with a small enough number of birds per area so that poop doesn’t seem to build up as fast as it would in a smaller space. In the flight cages I can clean, and swear it’s back in 2 hours lol. And that’s only 2 pet cage . They poop so much more than the “parrots” and it drives me nuts.

 

[chris-md]

You could give them a section of the cage (either higher up - not on he ground, or a section of floor with nothing over it, where you can put some AstroTurf or other parrot sage artificial grasslike material, and spread some seed for them to forage

 

[ChristaNL]

NOT advice...just thinking out loud here!
(toying with ideas)

In the stone-age, when I had budgies they were all kept in cages with that ground down seashell-stuff (shell-sand?). But it turns out that is not great for their breathing apparatus (might have been the added ground up aniseed for the extra clean smell) ... and of course it can be blown everywhere by a flapping bird once in a while. The plus was: it clumped the extrement so it was very easy to clean the cages.

Maybe a few cm/ inch of real natural sand would be an option?
Those reptilescoops would work great for birdpoop as well I think?

Or would the domesticated birds be so silly as to eat it?
(I would not do this with the larger parrots, because one wingflap and it would all end up everywhere, you would need pebbles to stay in place with those guys)
My aviarybirds never ate soil afaik.


oke....now let me know where I went wrong in my thinking

 

[Laurasea]

Oh I wish I had a screened in porch,!!!! I live in Florida for goodness sake!

 

[RavensGryf]

Oh I wish I had a screened in porch,!!!! I live in Florida for goodness sake!

Me too!! I wish it was a screened in porch! Instant aviary.. it would almost be done lol.

This is a livingroom extension which was added onto the original structure back in the 70’s (my old family home we are now living in). Now, this add on part has fallen apart because we’re finding out unfortunately, it wasn’t built as well as the original house. We have A LOT of work to do there. Walls, rafters, ceiling, etc. Little by little. This aviary project won’t start immediately, but I’m gathering ideas now, because that is the plan - to stop having to clean so many cages!

 

[bigfellasdad]

My whole house is Enzo's aviary, which is great for her.... not so much for me and especially the GF. Thankfully she does her poops in set places so I can prepare by putting down doggie mats. I would love a dedicated indoor aviary but I haven't really the room for it but if you have, go for it I thin it would be fantastic. Enzo's cage will go though doors with literally a few mm to spare so I push it outside once a week and jet wash it, I dont really have a problem with doing it and quite often my youngest son will do it for me..... he wastes so much water but he has a fabulous time!

 

[RavensGryf]

My whole house is Enzo's aviary, which is great for her.... not so much for me and especially the GF. Thankfully she does her poops in set places so I can prepare by putting down doggie mats. I would love a dedicated indoor aviary but I haven't really the room for it but if you have, go for it I thin it would be fantastic. Enzo's cage will go though doors with literally a few mm to spare so I push it outside once a week and jet wash it, I dont really have a problem with doing it and quite often my youngest son will do it for me..... he wastes so much water but he has a fabulous time!

My Pionus and Ruppell’s used to only poop in certain spots. But now as adults, they are less selective about where they poop. In fact, I know they’ll poop on my bed cover on purpose at times :20:.

The 3 parrot cages I have no problem with...
It’s just the two flight cages for the parakeets that get messy super fast, and it crosses the line of “too much”. Again, it wasn’t my choice to take them; they belonged to my elderly mom, and I am obligated to have them and provide for them. After all, it was me who convinced her she needed birds when she was looking for a pet 10+ years ago .