Aussie Finch Forum

Had my charcoal zebra hen escape over the weekend. I was very sick and doped up on flu tablets trying to juggle the seed containers (I have 20kg bags in bins but use cereal pourer containers to go into the aviaries) and a bag of millet sprays, and was not paying as much attention to where the birds were in the cage. So she flew right over my head. Gone . At least she wasn't paired up with anyone. This is the second time I have had a finch get out since I have been keeping them. I didn't cry this time much to my husband's relief. They are only zebra finches but I get so attached to them! Then the fact that I know once they get out they will be eaten by a hawk or cat sooner or later. *sigh*

A good reason to have a safety door, easy to add to an existing aviary – they prevent loses like yours.

Even a piece of shadecloth hung on the inside, to half way down, will prevent escapes if your door is as high as the aviary.

We have a piece of fabric bigger than the door with elastic wire (ie curtain wire) on it, hook that to the aviary wire over the door when we want to go in, it works like a treat and means you don't have fabric hanging down and blowing around inside the aviary all the time.

I use bird netting on a stretchy curtain wire on 2 of my aviaries and it works well , they are larger aviaries and the birds bugger off to the other side .
On the smaller aviaries we are adding safety doors , the 1 that has been done has proven to me the benefits of having them . I can go in and out and not panic about losing birds , actually 1 pair of birds seem to enjoy the freedom of the extra space and chuck a lap or 6 while Im doing what needs doing.



This one is big enough to keep a large cage in during the day so I dont have to worry about birds attacking the cage.

Bugger I did it again ...forgot to say ...sorry about your bird escaping , it does break your heart and it happens so quickly .

I let my other half's favorite Red Rump escape , same as you I wasn't feeling well and was in a hurry to get in out of the cold .

Well it convinced him to build safety doors or in my case safety verandahs

Best thing we did was to add a saftey door..


Harvey

My biggest aviary didn't have a safety cage at first, I put my hand up to that, Hubby asked if I wanted one but I was more concerned about the loss of space so I declined.......Bad Decision Heart in mouth every time I needed to get in there.
Solved it by getting another aviary and asking the guy making it to put an extra door in the safety cage so I could use it to enter two aviaries.
Older aviary on the left, new one with the triple door on the right.
Oops, before this edit both aviaries were on the right Either brain working faster than fingers or vice versa!

Di, you having a dyslexic moment? They can't both be on the right. My original design came with a 3 way safety door to allow protection from escape to all 3 avairys. It takes enough nagging to get hubby to build in the 1st place so he gets complete instructions so nothing is missed. Then I just hope that whatever "it was easier" modifications he makes work.
LML

Thank you all so much for your suggestions and photos, I think I will build a safety cage in front of my avairy. The new one is actually divided into 2 sections with both doors in the centre - if that makes sense, not sure if I am describing it right! It should be fairly simple to build a small cage in front so that both doors open into it. My older avairy is a problem though. It is currently emtpy while I decide how to improve it. It is only 1500x1500mm with the door going right to the roof. Worse is that it is a sliding door that doesn't slide very smoothly - it often sticks which makes it hard to close quickly. I guess another safety cage may be in order here. At least it won't need to come out as far because I don't need to allow for a swinging door.

Again I greatly appreciate all the helpful comments, it is true that we all learn from our mistakes but having a great group of experienced intelligent minds to share the journey with makes the learning so much easier!