Can a yellow nape amazon sleep in a homemade nest

Oct 04, 2011

Can a yellow nape amazon sleep in a homemade nest
by: Linda

Your bird does not need a nest to sleep in. Your bird does need safe natural wood branches to stand on. These can be bought in any pet store that carries bird supplies or online. You need to measure inside width of cage so the perches fit correctly, and perches have to be correct size for your bird's feet. I believe it's 1 to 1 1/2" for an Amazon the size of your bird maybe a little larger.

If you have your bird sitting on the wooden dowel rods that come with cage, then these are unhealthy and will cause foot sores and cramps in legs and feet. This will develop into early arthritis.

The perches I mentioned come with hardware already installed, so get inside dimensions for your cage and get the appropriate sized branches. Make sure they are made from safe wood, and there is a list on this site of safe and unsafe wood and plants. If you make your own perches, safe wood is wood that has NEVER been sprayed with pesticide. Any tree that has been sprayed with these poisons soak it up through the bark, and the wood is then toxic for a parrot to have in cage. You'd need hanger bolts, washers the size of the perch and butterfly or wing nuts for the outside. There is a washer for the inside and one for the outside. The wingnuts are put on the outside. We use stainless steel hanger bolts, washers and wing nuts as zinc is poison for birds. Birds don't usually put their mouths on them though, so you can use the cheaper kinds which are zinc found in hardware stores. For bird toy hangers, use only nickel plated or stainless steel as the ones they usually come with are zinc and poison. This is especially true of anything metal from China where they use the cheapest stuff possible which usually means possible lead and zinc which is just as toxic as lead to birds.

Otherwise, your bird is supposed to stand on his perches as that is how they do it in the wild. The natural branch perches provide differing diameters all across them which provides the feet rest by not having to hold onto the same diameter all the time like on dowel rods.

Thanks for writing,
Linda

Can a yellow nape amazon sleep in a homemade nest

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Can a yellow nape amazon sleep in a homemade nest

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