Parrots sleeping outside

Dec 17, 2011

Parrots sleeping outside
by: Linda

If you live either in Southern California or Florida, this will be okay. If you live where it gets very cold in winter, this will not work right away. In colder climates, it takes birds around 3 years/seasons to acclimate to being outside. This means putting them outside when weather gets warmer and bringing in when it starts to get cool. Your Aviary will also have to be wired for heat. No light emitter bulbs can work for this as they help keep birds warm inside an enclosed area without keeping them awake. This means aviary has to be wired and the regular light bulb sockets installed inside the closed in room. Nestboxes will not work to keep them from freezing and will be extremely hot in summer. Your enclosed room will need screened windows for ventilation for the summer. Be careful not to set windows so there is a cross draft because any kind of draft winter or summer will cause pneumonia in parrots.Put hardware cloth wire over inside of windows to prevent injury.

Light bulbs will have to be caged in hardware cloth and all cords will have to be in metal conduit and run in ceiling away from birds. Conduit and caging will be necessary if running down walls. It will be easier to put sockets into the higher areas so the cords can be run through conduit and plug in.Birds can have no access to bulbs or cords. Outside flight area has to be double wired. This means a wood frame with inside wood covered in hardware cloth. Outside has to be covered with some kind of screen either wire or better yet fiberglass or some other material resilient to weather. This is to keep bugs out. Top of this area has to be solidly covered to keep wild birds from landing on top of flight and pooping into your bird's area. Wild birds carry parasites and diseases. To keep rodents and snakes out, you'll need to pour a concrete curb around the entire aviary. For the wire flight, you'll need to put the wire into this curb while concrete is still setting up, so the wire is buried in concrete. A concrete floor has to be poured, and before doing this, pipe out from a center drain so water goes out in about 4 directions. Slant concrete for this when building form. This is for when it rains and for cleaning up. Drainage pipes come to the outside all around and cap them with wire that can be removed so food and dirt can drain out. Closing the pipes off with wire is necessary to keep rodents and snakes out, so use small strong hardware cloth to make the end covers for the pipes coming to outside.

This is the correct way to build an aviary, and your birds will take at least 3 seasons to become acclimated. It is best to bring them inside soon as it gets cool in the Fall, and extend time before bringing them in a little bit each season until you are leaving them outside for their first winter. Make sure lights work correctly. These no light emitter bulbs work like heat lamps, so smaller size bulbs are best in a smaller enclosed area.

Linda

Parrots sleeping outside

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Parrots sleeping outside

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