Outfitting a new cage

[JamesC]

Today I picked up a new cage for one of my blue crowns. Rosa's old cage came with her from the rescue organization and is barely adequate. The person from the rescue described it as "Ghettotastic". She deserves a good new home.

I do not house the birds together yet because Rosa seems to have a bit of a nipping at Tootsie's feet thing going on. Rosa is young and Tootsie is old and slowing down. I don't want her to get dominated badly when I'm not around. But my hope is that I'm going to get confident enough in their good behavior that I can move them into the same cage. So I got one big enough to give them both plenty of room. 32x23 inches and pretty tall.

So now here I am staring at this big empty cage and wondering how to outfit it. I'm curious what some of your favorite perches and arrangements are. Trying to mine some ideas before I head to the local bird store this weekend and lighten my wallet a little more.

 

[lene1949]

I've always done mine bit by bit... like, adding a new thing every payday, or when spare money appears in my account... I also think a brand new cage, full of new toys might scare a bird... Put some of his old toys in there for familiarity.

 

[roxynoodle]

Well, they spend most of their time in the top part of the cage. So you want some good perches up there. It's also where you want a concrete perch if you decide to add one. That's also where I put most of the toys. My BC really liked a rope perch I gave her as well that was about at the midpoint of the cage. And I put a perch in front of the food and water dishes.

Don't go overboard yet though. Branches and a few toys. You can buy more when you figure out what your bird likes. My BC was very picky about toys. It took some imagination on my part to find or make her things she could take apart, but with effort. If it was too easy she didn't like it either. My Nanday, on the other hand, loves all toys. The other day I said I had to find more perches and toys for the amazon and when she heard "toys" she went bonkers. I said ha, ha, how many do you have? I counted and she currently has 10! I said Pete only has 3 and doesn't even like one of them.

 

[JamesC]

I am not planning on getting any unfamaliar toys for the cage yet except for one that I'm transferring from Tootsie's cage. One she never plays with. All the other toys and her favorite sleeping perch will be coming from her old cage and one from the playpen they share when I'm home.

I put Rosa on top of the cage last night after I assembled it and let the birds calm down from the fuss of putting it together. She didn't seem too upset about it and walked around looking curiously down through the bars.

I did stop and get a couple of perches and a new happy hut on my way home this evening. Might have made a mistake with the "crazy perch", a bent stick hung by chains on either side. I took Rosa over to the cage and let her look inside at the perches. She grabbed the rope perch and bee lined it to the top and climbed onto the crazy perch which started rocking rapiodly forward and aft. That was one very startled looking bird and it was obvious that she did not enjoy the experience. It is a good perch in a nice place but I think that I might have to find some way to dampen the movements of it.

I'll give them a couple more days to get used to the sight of it then I will move it next to Tootsie's cage this weekend and start putting them both on and in it. If all goes well I hope to have Rosa in there permanently by the following weekend.