# questions about securing an aviary



## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Hey guys,
I have just bought an aviary for my pigeon.
It's made from colourbond steel (or something similar), but about half of it is aviary mesh.

Living in Australia, it is about the time of year for baby brown snakes (the worlds second most poisonous snake) to be around suburban gardens.

On two sides, there is only aviary mesh, and i'm scared a snake could get through the wire.

I'm going to attach either smaller mesh, shade cloth, or more colourbond around the bottom of the mesh, so that a snakes can't get in. How high up do you think i need to secure it to be safe?

Also, the aviary doesn't have a floor. We don't really have any "digging" type animals around here, so i doubt that will be a problem, but what do you think i should do about the floor?

Will laying down big mesh chicken wire before i place the aviary be enough? (just in case a cat did decide to dig)

are there any negatives to having earth as the floor?

any advice would be MUCH appreciated


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## Matt D. (May 12, 2007)

The best thing, or atleast the best thing in my mind (because this is the way I would do it,) would you need to make the bottom out of a sheet or plywood or some type of hardwood. Depending on your budget. Then I would lift it up from the ground a good 3 1/2 feet. If you are are able to surround it in 1/4" wire that would be best. (sorry the mesurements aren't in metric.) I hope you get it secured. Make sure how ever you do it that it can't be knocked over or carried off by something, and if you have any doubt as to if it is safe enought; then it isn't!


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Hey thanks for the reply Matt. That sounds like a really good idea, except...

I don't really have the budget to buy that much plywood, and i would have to somehow glue/nail/whatever the sheets together, as the aviary dimensions are about 11 x 4.5 feet. 

Again, due to the size, i don't know how i could actually have it 3 1/2 feet off the ground...It's like a walk in aviary, so that would stop me from being able to even reach pecky, because theres only a door at one of the shorter ends, and the floor wouldnt be able to support my weight to be able to walk inside..

I will buy sheets of plywood if that is the only thing that is safe enough...but i'd have no idea how to attach them together, and it really would dent my already horribly tight budget. I just quit my job last week (hehe), and i've spent more money on Pecky than my basic living needs..

If the plywood is the only option, i'll have to wait until i find another job, and have some kind of temporary fix in the mean time..any ideas?


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## Matt D. (May 12, 2007)

Oh, i'm sorry I didn't catch that it was a BIG aviery. Just about any foundation will work. Brick, stone, concrete, or just put in down on some type of wire. But you will have to think about the droppings. I would also put some wire around the bottom of the cage just to make it alittle harder for anything to sneak in.


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

yeah sorry, i forgot to specify.

I CAN get some bricks, and extend an already paved area on my yard to accomodate the aviary.

I live in a rented house though. will the poo damage the paved area? I would get into trouble if it does.

Do you think bricks would be easier to clean than plain old dirt?


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

THat is great. I hope that you will be able to find a pigeon that needs a home soon.



> We don't really have any "digging" type animals around here


Does that exclude rats and foxes? If there are rats they can also gnaw through wood. Mice also like to enter aviaries by an underground tunnel.

If you are going to rewire, then use wire that is too narrow for mice.

When I got my first aviary I was advised to make it rat poof. I told the man that sold it to me that we diddn't get rats, his reply was "you will"...they took a few years to find me, but they eventually arrived.



> will the poo damage the paved area?


No, I have a great part of my aviary paved with rather soft paving stones that have a ridged pattern. A lot of poop accumulates there and it is scraped and scrubbed down with soapy water regularly (sometimes every day) It has been there for nearly 9 years and I have 100 pigeons, but the slabs come up as new every time it is scrubbed.

Cynthia


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

awesome..I'll use bricks as a foundation then.

We don't really get foxes in the city, however i saw on the news the other day that foxes are starting to live in the parklands right in the city centre. I've never seen a fox, but i assume they're pretty good at hiding. I live about 10 mins by car away.
So it is possible..but rather unlikely. Still, using bricks as a base, that will make sure they don't get in.

I've heard on here that rats kill pigeons..to me this is amazing. We get rats, sometimes, but not big pigeon eating rats. When rats eat pigeons, do they attack singly, or in groups? The aviary is metal, so no chance of gnawing.

Do you think that if i rewire up to a metre off the ground, this will take care of mice getting in? I can't afford to rewire the whole aviary.

I think i'm going to buy some really thin cheap pieces of wood, and lay them on the bricks, and then put the aviary on top. Otherwise, because the bricks aren't laid perfectly flat, mice could get in from the bottom.

Something really funny happened today...Pecky hadn't bathed for a week..not even this morning when i showered..but tonight, she was sitting on a old tshirt, and she had a "t-shirt bath". she treated the shirt just like it was water, squatting down and shaking her little body into it. I gave her a dish of water, and she hopped straight in. It was like she was telling me.


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## EgypSwiftLady (Jan 14, 2008)

Hi,
I have owned snake's most of my life and wouldn't use the wood, it wouldn't seem like it but a baby snake can get enough of a grip on the wood to climb, I've seen it happen. I would go with the mess you mentioned. I would also determine the length of a hatchling brown snake and go at least 2 more times that length, that way the snake would only be able to get as high as it is long.


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## Feefo (Feb 8, 2002)

Rats will sometimes kill pigeons, they don't have to be particularly large to do it. And they can squeeze through incredibly small gaps. At different times we have had two rats in the viary, they were very quiet and well behaved and didn't touch the pigeons even when they were panicking as I tried to guide them out of the aviary, but others haven't been so lucky.

We have loads of urban foxes here! I have seen them in the very centre of the city, but never later than 5:30 am...however, John's neighbourhood has a fox that suns itself in full view in the daytime.

I can't advise you on the wiring to exclude mice. We have not been able to exclude them from my aviary so we try to trap and relocate them. The only effective momouse deterrents we have had were the muricidal "stowaway" rats, and I couldn't keep them in there!

Cynthia


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

It will help if you put 3 inches of gravel underneath your loft floor because rats won't be able to dig in. If they try, the gravel falls in the tunnel they are trying to dig. I used concrete blocks on top of the gravel.


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Thanks for all the tips guys  I guess the aviary is going to cost far more than the money i paid for it to begin with..but that's life  About the wood, i didn't mean i'd put it on the walls of the aviary, i meant i'd use it as the floor. On top of the bricks, but under the aviary. To seal the bottom better than the crooked bricks.

That's amazing about the fox. Foxes are so timid usually! Except once, when i was about 7, out camping, my brother and i were standing in this field, and a fox came right up to us, about 2 metres away, and just stood there looking at us for ages. We had a moment with him. It was really cool 

I remember once, i met a baby fox at a sanctuary too. It was so adorable. There was a baby kangaroo (a joey) in the enclosure with him too, which lived in a pillowcase hung from the wall, as a pouch. The fox would try to jump in with him, and when the joey left the pouch, the fox would jump right in, and the y'd have to remove him to make room for the joey! So cute.


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

This is the time to do it right so I'm glad you have asked for our advise. Rats can chew through wood so keep that in mind for the final plans.
I'll be looking forward to pictures of happy birds inside.


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

A rat can fit through any opening that its head can fit through, no matter how fat the rat may be. And one rat can do some major damage. I have pet rats and back when I had them in the house with the pigeons, we had all the cages covered, but inevitably once in awhile a cover would get moved and a pigeon would land on the corner of a cage. Even if that sweet old friendly rat was dead asleep, within half a second it would be up and pulling pigeon toes through the cage.  It is such a deep instinct (from what I've seen) to attack something feathered, for rats. I would think if you used wood on the floor, you wouldn't have to put bricks underneath it. Another thought is to just put wire on the floor, and have it raised on wooden pallets (such as supermarkets throw away) or on cement blocks, something like that. Then you just rake under the aviary to clean up poop. Good luck!


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## Charis (Feb 11, 2007)

maryjane said:


> A rat can fit through any opening that its head can fit through, no matter how fat the rat may be. And one rat can do some major damage. I have pet rats and back when I had them in the house with the pigeons, we had all the cages covered, but inevitably once in awhile a cover would get moved and a pigeon would land on the corner of a cage. Even if that sweet old friendly rat was dead asleep, within half a second it would be up and pulling pigeon toes through the cage.  It is such a deep instinct (from what I've seen) to attack something feathered, for rats. I would think if you used wood on the floor, you wouldn't have to put bricks underneath it. Another thought is to just put wire on the floor, and have it raised on wooden pallets (such as supermarkets throw away) or on cement blocks, something like that. Then you just rake under the aviary to clean up poop. Good luck!


The wire rusts and falls apartsooner that later in a damp or humid climate. Thats why I put gravel underneath. When rats try to dig into the coop, the gravel falls in on them and they can't tunnel underneath. I put cement blocks on top of the gravel with aslight slope so it is easy to hose down.


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

The wooden bits i;m thinking of getting are going to be quite thin..say half a centremetre, and will run more than the length of the aviary, to create a kind of platform for the aviary to sit on, having the platform about half a metre longer on all sides, so if the rats were to gnaw through the wood to get underneath, they'd have to knaw through the wood from the edge of the platform, which would take a loooong time..if that makes sense

I hope it does..
The gravel idea is really good, and i'll be hoping to do that in the long run, but right now i don't think i can afford gravel. It's really expensive over here!

And i can't prop the aviary up, because i want to be able to sit in it with her, and propping it, would mean the floor wouldn't take my weight.
I'm going to rewire the whole thing, i think..or put wire over the wire already there.

Thanks for all your help!
Pictures will be coming soon!


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Oh, and that still amazes me about the rats.

My brother had a pet rat once. He was really sweet. I had no idea he would do something like that


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Okay, so i have the aviary now.

It is made of metal sheeting and the frame is made of metal poles.

The problem is, the 4 vertical metal posts at the base go down further than the metal sheeting, leaving a 3 or 4 inch gap between the ground and the sheeting...

I was going to put bricks inside for the floor, to build the floor up so there would be no gaps, but its the type of metal sheeting that has little V-bends in it, so the bricks would not be super-flush against the metal walls, allowing just enough space for rats...

I've thought of other alternatives, like putting aviary wire on the bottom, and keeping the bricks under the aviary wire, so there is a brick platform to stand on inside, but it is still protected by the wire on top, but this would be really expensive..

Do you think if i sunk it into the ground, and the placed bricks around the outside, and inside, this would be enough?

Then if a rat tried to dig, it would have to get past the bricks, and burrow deeply to get under the other side..only to come up and find a brick border, that it would have to burrow under, to get through.

Does this make sense? How deep would i have to sink the aviary into the ground?

Also, the aviary mesh is like 1/2 an inch high by almost an inch wide..you know the type..it is shaped like hexagons, similar to chicken wire but smaller. 

I'm going to have to rewire..which will be expensive in itself..(for me). I'm pretty sure 1/2 inch mesh will be way cheaper than 1/4 inch. am i right? 
When people say to make the mesh a 1/4 inch, why is this? what predator could get in through 1/2 inch mesh? surely not rats...

Thanks!


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## Matt D. (May 12, 2007)

Really not many 'animals' can get into your aviary with 1/2 inch, i have this all the way around and through my loft. It has been raining here for the last few days, and for the first time I have found worms, earthworms, in my loft. My birds won't touch them, and today I blocked off all the hardware cloth. 1/4 would help with the worms and leafs and things. But 1/2 inch also leaves the aviary open to bugs, which can be very bad for pigeons, especially in a drafty aviary. 1/4 is about twice as expensive as 1/2 inch. I just looked and had to buy 1/4 so I could rewire the top of a storage area to convert it to a loft for my new satinettes, and their young. 1/4 keeps in feathers and shavings in much better, too. In my opinion, I would flip the aviary over and put 1/4 inch hardware cloth where the siding stops to the bottom and cover the bottom too. (this will be expensive so if you wanted you could just buy some kind of plastic sheet to cover the bottom. Then dig a whole and put the aviary in the ground to the siding. Then fill in the bottom of the aviary with dirt to 1 1/2 ft. of the siding. Then put in your 1 1/2 ft. of brick so it would be flush to the siding, this way you will eliminate a lot of problems along with about 3 feet or so of your aviary height. I hope some of this helped.


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Thanks for the reply Matt 
I haven't seen one earthworm in my garden yet..and i dig a lot for vegetables and stuff..so maybe i will just stick to the 1/2 inch..that is expensive enough!
The aviary isn't really exposed to draughts, as it is against a fence, and there is an entire part made from metal sheets to roost, covered on all sides.

The problem with putting dirt in, and then bricks, is that it will make the aviary so short, it will look more like a rabbit hutch.

If i wired the bottom, then put bricks down on the ground as the base, and then put the aviary on top of the bricks, the wire would be about level with the bricks. so even though it is only a wire bottom, it would be strong enough to walk on because the wire would sit just on top of the bricks..

Or i could do it the other way around - wire the bottom of the aviary, and dig holes to sink the aviary to where the sides are level with the ground, and then put bricks inside the aviary on top of the wire.

Again..this will be pretty expensive.

Alternatively, maybe i could skip the wire on bottom, and lay some bricks down, and then sink the aviary feet down to brick level..then that would cure the problem of getting bricks flush with the sides, because the bottom of the sides would be resting on the bricks, rather than trying to build up inside or outside of the walls and encountering the v-corrugation dilemma..

I'm so stupid to think that the cost price of the aviary was all i would have to pay.

I think that Pecky is going to be living in the bathroom for some time until i come up with some cash to remedy the problem. hehe.


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## maryjane (Jul 15, 2006)

I use a chicken wire that is smaller than the normal size. Instead of the holes being usual sized, they are 1/4. It is sturdy, easier to work with than hardware cloth, and most importantly, a lot cheaper! Maybe that will help.


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Awesome thanks maryjane..
I'll definitely look into that 

Oh, and i think i found a remedy for the brick problem too...
The council is paving all of the footpaths around here...there are HEAPS of stacks of bricks littering the footpaths right now..

I'm sure they won't miss a few


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Okay...i've rung around. i can't find any chicken wire that small, but i found 1/2 inch wire mesh, which is "galvanized".

Reading a budgie forum, i found that people have said their aviary wire killed their birds by lead or zinc poisoning..

I rang the hardware store and asked what metal, and the woman said it is "galvanised", but they sell it for aviaries all the time. It's really the only mesh they sell around here..i looked up "galvanized" on dictionary.com, and it says it is when another metal is coated in zinc.

Will this be a problem? I assume not, since even if it was hazardous, Pecky doesn't use her beak like parrots or anything...

Has anyone had any problem with metal poisoning in their pigeons?

Just making sure.


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## TAWhatley (Mar 6, 2001)

nikku-chan said:


> Okay...i've rung around. i can't find any chicken wire that small, but i found 1/2 inch wire mesh, which is "galvanized".
> 
> Has anyone had any problem with metal poisoning in their pigeons?
> 
> Just making sure.


This should be fine. Pigeons/doves aren't going to "chew" on the wire like hookbills. We call this type of wire hardware cloth here in the U.S.

Terry


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

Awesome thanks Terry.

I'll post pictures when I'm done


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## nikku-chan (Jan 18, 2008)

one more question...

should the aviary be in shade?
At the moment it is basically in shade, with a few tiny areas that get dappled light for a few hours.


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