Suspended Aviaries for Scarlet Honeyeater

[Ripley]

Craig'

Please keep your ear's(ears) open....It may mean another trip to Geelong....but it would be worth it...Cheers Ripley (Christopher)

[Craig52]

Chris,i've seen them in my sisters calistermans? at her house in Currumbin,so you may be able to get them from a breeder up there,i'll throw a few feelers out. Craig

[Pete Sara]

What are they worth a pair ? , not that I am an expert on any softbills , but I persoanly wouldnt want to risk it in a suspended cage . I could be quite happy with one pair of birds in a normal sized softbill aviary if that was the case... pete

[natamambo]

I'm not at all convinced about suspendeds - but I do like Sam's observation .

Plants in pots allows them to be rotated in and out of a "normal" flight as required, that's what I do. I can't picture how you're imagining getting the flowers through the wire of the floor so that the birds can feed off them - no grevillea or bottle brush I've seen has flowers that will fit between 1/2" wire. I'd also worry about the birds *always* having to hang on to wire and never being able to walk on the ground - as Jay says, they are often down low in the wild and even the height of most aviaries is "down low" by bird standards.

I'm also not sure how you could provide enough privacy and shelter for them. The flight I'm preparing in anticipation is small for Scarlets at just 1.2m x 2.8m and between the flowering bush in the front and the scrub at the back there isn't a great deal of room left over for them to be active compared to the more open at the front flights the chats and wrens are in. If I need to I'll open up into another flight beside them so that the "back" half - say about 1.2 x 1.8m of the enlarged flight can be scrub and flowering plants in pots.

I understand what Tint says about the challenge of breeding them so I'll effectively be experimenting with them a bit too trying to get them to breed in a flight that size, trying to work out whether it's privacy or diet or nesting materials or .... that makes the difference by altering things year to year if required to try and see what works. To that end, and perhaps to obtain birds, I'd be happy to be part of any consortium being organised.

[Ripley]

Hi Natnambo,

I'm lucky enough to be be studying bonsai; and I have learnt to keep the trees short and if needed in flower., the plants would be slid into place in the suspended; and the removed & replaced when needed with another flowering tree....the trees would be maximum 50cm tall, and placed through the access door in the covered walkway.....
The birds would be given everything they would want, without the need of the lower metre & half with in a conventional aviary.

I think it's worth the experiment with three pairs of birds...If worse,comes to worse, i`ll build conventional aviaries,but the trees will be rather short.
I believe the birds will be happy, because they will not have any human touch & I wouldn't be entering the domain...

I believe aviculture is trying to do the best for bird in your care, but maybe someone occasionally needs to be a trail blazer. It reminds me about the conversation regarding lories & lorikeets twenty years ago, that you couldn't successfully raise them in suspended 's.....
Just maybe,at the next softbill conference I will be talking about the success I have had or lack of.....only time & experimentation
will tell...

Cheers
Ripley

[natamambo]

Ahhh, bonsai, that explains tree size and them fitting . Question though, does size relate to available nutrients? Talking to Softbills after his speech at the conference, he's convinced that an adequate supply of "real" food from red flowers makes the breeding difference ie any variety of quality mixes will keep them alive but not encourage them to breed.

I'm not trying to be a knocker here by the way, just be a sounding board as I'll be in the same boat shortly I hope in reards to wanting to collect information needed to help improve breeding success.

I do have one devils advocate question though..... Given my inability to even give away one of the easiest softbills to keep and breed, why are we all so desperate to breed one of the more difficult ones just to get left with the young .

[desertbirds]

They are extremely active little birds.They would fly up and down all day in a neurotic manner. I don't think it would do them justice to keep them in any sized suspended cage. I would also be extremely surprised if they bred in a suspended, they are hard enough to get to breed in a 10 mtr X 10 mtr planted aviary.

Personally Ripley i dont think experiments are a good idea in some cases.You are talking about putting a highly active bird in a tiny aviary. With some species there is no compromise for a large planted aviary and putting the birds mental/physical health first.Seeing any bird or animal housed in an environment that induces stereotypical behavior is very disturbing and a practice that should have been stopped decades ago. Its only my opinion but i dont see a great value in seeing how far we reduce aviary size and still breed a bird.

[Tintola]

In regards to the quote on lorikeets, I would not keep them in a small suspended either. Just because we can doesn't mean that we should! I would prefer to spend the money to be used on 3 or 4 suspendeds on one decent sized aviary and only keep one pair of honey-eaters with other species. These birds still have their wild genetics and are not like domesticated zebs or budgies that are so docile that they are happy in a budgie cage. I only know about 4 or 5 people in Aus that have bred them, all in large aviaries, planted with suitable nectar producing shrubs. At about $600 a pair you would want them to do as best as they can.

[Danny]

I've housed scarlets in suspendeds whilst renovating a cage. They really aren't happy in the long term. By about their third week they were less vocal, less active and just sedentary. When moved back to a standard aviary of larger size they returned to normal again.

[Craig52]

Ripley,i hope you are listening to what others are saying we don't want to loose a beautiful pr pair of softbills to someones stubborness Craig