# which cage is best?



## Lexygurl (Jun 28, 2007)

I want to know which cage I own is best for a pet pigeon who gets lots of indoor flying time. My first cage is 29.5" long, 17" wide, and 17" tall. The second cage is 24" long, 16" wide, and 31" tall. Which is best? Or should I try to trade the two I have for something bigger?


----------



## spirit wings (Mar 29, 2008)

the first one sounds fine if you let him out allot.


----------



## Bird Crazy (Aug 9, 2011)

I have about the same situation as you do with your pet pigeon. The cage he calls home when he is not out for flight and exercise has the following dimensions: Hight = 32 1/2, width = 17 3/4 and length = 22 inches. The whole cage sits on a stand with wheels and the overall hight with the cage is a little over 54 inches. 

Even though my boy gets around in it just fine, I do think it's still a bit small for him and have been putting funds away to purchase a bigger cage. I find that as long as he gets regular out of cage time to stretch and fly, he is fine with the accomodations and does not become overly territorial when he's been exercised properly. It's only when he feels he hasn't gotten out enough that he becomes extremely pecky about his cage space and will peck me practically to death if my hands go in there for cage chores. 

As a general rule - bigger is always better. Buy the biggest cage you can afford and have room for that is safe for the bird and easy for you to clean and care for. 

My Chance's cage was something of an emergency purchase since he was injured when I found him and he needed a very long recovery period. At the time, I had no cage appropriate to his size and no time to really take my time in finding one thinking that he would be treated and released eventually since he was a feral pigeon. The release never happened for medical reasons and he just sort of took over the cage as his own. So now I excercise him regularly and have him trained for recall, land on my hand when called, step up to my hand from a perch and back to the perch as well as others. It's amazing how intelligent pigeons are and he caught on pretty fast. A good site - even though it's cageing for parrots - is Bird Cages for less.com. If you go to medium to large size cages there you should be able to find something you like. Good luck cage hunting.


----------



## Lexygurl (Jun 28, 2007)

Bird Crazy said:


> I have about the same situation as you do with your pet pigeon. The cage he calls home when he is not out for flight and exercise has the following dimensions: Hight = 32 1/2, width = 17 3/4 and length = 22 inches. The whole cage sits on a stand with wheels and the overall hight with the cage is a little over 54 inches.
> 
> Even though my boy gets around in it just fine, I do think it's still a bit small for him and have been putting funds away to purchase a bigger cage. I find that as long as he gets regular out of cage time to stretch and fly, he is fine with the accomodations and does not become overly territorial when he's been exercised properly. It's only when he feels he hasn't gotten out enough that he becomes extremely pecky about his cage space and will peck me practically to death if my hands go in there for cage chores.
> 
> ...


Thanks for the imput. It sounds like one of the cages I own will be ok then because my pigeon gets plenty of outside time. How did you train your bird to recall successfully?


----------



## Lexygurl (Jun 28, 2007)

oSojoS


spirit wings said:


> the first one sounds fine if you let him out allot.O


 ok great! That's the one I thought would be best too.


----------



## Sky Island (Aug 12, 2011)

i would say the bigger the better but for only a few i think the first is big enough.


----------



## Bird Crazy (Aug 9, 2011)

Hi Lexygurl,

With Chance, I started with some basic bird commands like...Step up (on my hand) and step down (return to perch), no peck/bite (I've only had minimal success with that one. LOL) return to his parrot stand when I ask him and the "go back" command for when I want to return him to his cage. When asked, "Go Back"? He lets me know he is ready to return to his cage by cooing loudly then pacing back and forth. Having been a parrot owner for many years before Chance arrived and having trained my own birds and others, I at least had that experience and an idea of where to begin with Chance. I decided that the best place to start was to gain his trust while he recovered from his injuries. With gentle handling and reasuring him that hands were not evil and that I meant no harm, I gained enough of his trust within a few months to have him accept standing on my hand/fingers without too much fuss or pecking and then having him step down again to his perch when asked. During the course of progessing with those two commands, I started testing his limits (of intelligence, attention span, etc) to see how far I could go in training him and found that not only was he an intelligent bird, catching onto what was expected of him more quicky than I thought would be the case, but that he was also curious as well as adaptable to new situations and willing after an adjustment period to the unfamiliar, to try new things. About the only thing I found difficult in training him was his short attention span. With parrots, you can usually work with them on a routine for about 15-20 minutes at a time; several times a day, to get them to perform as you want them to. With Chance, I found that 5-10 minutes of a teaching a command not only taxed his attention span but also his patience level and if pushed beyond those limits, garnered me a serious pecking reward, reminding me that training is a two-way street and that in the process of training him as with all bird training, he was also training me as to what I could expect from him and when. Therfore, my advice to you would be to keep practice/traning sessions short but more frequent to get the results you want and to spend lots of quality time with your bird both in and out of his cage. The more he/she trusts you, the stronger your bond will be and the bird will be more willing to obey you. I do want to add that since my Chance was a feral pigeon before he came to live with me that during training sessions I couldn't just offer him seed out of my hand as a reward for doing as he was asked because no matter how much I've tried to get him to do that he has never accepted eating out of my hand. Therefore I used my voice as his reward and praised him dramatically whenever he performed a command correctly. I only use this tone of voice for when he takes the appropriate action - with birds it's not what you say, but how you say it that counts. On the other side of the coin, I also use a strong tone of voice to scold him for being where he shouldn't be like when he decides he needs to take a walk into a forbidden area of the house. That usually earns him a scolding (no yelling at him involved here - just a strong talking to) in a stern voice and a quick return to his cage.

To train for the recall you first need to master step up on command. Once that is accomplished and your bird is doing it when asked like it's second nature to him/her, then you can place the bird either on the back of a chair at eye level to you or on top of it's cage and step back a few inches. Hold your hand in the step up position and call the bird by name and give the command for step up. Reward the bird immediately after it does the step up by using lots of dramatic praise or giving a food treat. If the bird does not come to you on the first try, don't worry. It may take a few times for it to figure out what you want it to do. Coaxing helps. If after a few more tries the bird still will not step up to your hand over the short gap between itself and where you are waiting/standing, shorten the distance between you and the bird (even if it's just one or two steps back from the bird) and try again until over the next few weeks time, you have increased the distance considerably. Keep practicing with your bird until are across the room from him/her when you ask it for a step up. Of course, you don't have to use the phrase, step up. You can use whatever word or phrase you want as a command for the recall so long as you use it consistently and in the same tone of voice each and every time. Once you have the bird comming to you consistently when you call it and it's receiving a reward for answering your call, then - Great Job, both of you will have mastered the recall command. 

Chance has now progressed to the stage where he will fly to me across the full length of a room when called. To prompt him to do it and accomplish the goal, I use two verbal cues to call him to me - his name and the word "come" as well as a physical sound cue - snapping my fingers. He then gets immediate praise for landing on my hand. He has gotten so good at the recall that he will land on my hand from wherever he is even if he is already in flight back to another destination and not perching when I call him. In fact, he obeys commands so well after years of constant reinforcement that all I have to do is say his name, snap my fingers and point to an area I want him to fly to (like his cage, play stand or the back of our sofa) then after giving me a brief look, fly to where I wanted him to go. LOL Good Luck in training your baby.


----------

