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Cage Questions

Alien J

Rollerblading along the road
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Janet Rush Van Eyck
I was wondering how most of the people on the Avenue go about setting up their fids' cages?

Do you put perches in first, or toys...or is food/water placement first? Does your cage, or do your cages, stay basically the same with toys rotating on a regular schedule? How many toys? How often do they get rotated? How do you decide the set up? Do you make up a new arrangement every time or rotate a number of tried and true designs???

I know a lot of the answers will be different for different types of birds, but I'm quite curious. I get really frustrated sometimes working on TD's.

Thanks!
 

Mizzely

Lil Monsters Bird Toys
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I only can use cages with feeder doors, so food placement is already decided. I do perches next, then roost spot, then toys.

Jingo likes to hop around his cage so I try to make it compatible for him on that. Otherwise, I just try to make it so he poops on perches and food at a minimum. I change out perches when they are too dirty for a spot cleaning, but once I have a good setup, I try not to move things too much. I do also swap out swings and boings regularly. I always have a pedicure perch, a flat perch, a rope perch, and natural perches.

As for toys, I make sure I always have 2 foraging toys, a noisy toy, a preen toy, a wood chipping toy, and a shredding toy. Then I usually leave them for a few weeks. I choose one toy to replace, and then the other toys play musical chairs and go to new positions. Then after another few weeks, I do the same thing. This way he gets ample time to try something and sometimes it's all about location!
 

rocky'smom

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For me it depends on which bird I'm setting up, Sweet Pea or Bebe. Sweet Pea I have to be careful about any potential items that she might use to stimulate herself for egg laying. Bebe is easy once I get him out of his cage.
 

taxidermynerd

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With Chirp once everything is out, I figure out where I want the bowls to go, then figure out any key toys/swings I want to include. Then the perches, then more toys to fill out the cage, and then I put in the bowls last.
 

Parakeet88

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I just set up three cages for my five birds and it can definitely be frustrating (especially when the cages are huge but still not big enough to fit all their stuff :hilarious:) , but my favorite part is watching them explore their new home. My parakeets went nuts when I put them in their new cage. They were hopping all over checking out their new toys, they loved it!

I decide where I want food/ water bowls first to avoid putting perches or anything over them. Then I do perches and larger toys/ swings. Perches are a pain, there are always some that will be covered in poop no matter how I try to arrange them. I make sure any chewing perches go up high so at least they're not chewing perches with poop on them. Any kind of calcium perches or natural wood perches go up high. I tend to put rope perches lower because they are easier to clean. I make sure I get the favorite toys in and then fill up empty spots with new toys. Side mounted toys are a great way to squeeze more toys into the cage without taking up a lot of space. I also use shower rings or c links to extend hanging toys, otherwise they all hang around the same length so you have a bunch of toys at the top and wasted space around the middle of the cage.

I don't move perches around as often as I rotate toys. I don't really have a set schedule or any rhyme or reason to it. Obviously toys that are chewed up get replaced asap. I change toys when I see my birds getting bored. If they're spending a lot of time sitting around, not really playing I know it's time for some new toys. I think it's pretty easy to tell when they're not stimulated enough. Also, some toys take them longer to figure out/ explore. My parakeets love mahogany so I got them some mahogany toys from hoot n holler. They were obsessed with one toy but now that they've chewed all the mahogany off of that toy they've now become obsessed with a different mahogany toy that they didn't really care about before. So don't give up on a toy right away if you don't see your bird using it and don't be too quick to replace favorites, make them find something else to play with for a bit.

It does also depend on your specific bird. My parakeets prefer to climb and won't do long jumps from perch to perch so I try to put more perches in and put them fairly close together so they don't have to jump far. If perches are too far apart they will climb on the cage to get to the next perch. My bourkes on the other hand prefer to jump. They very rarely climb on the cage bars. I can use fewer perches for them and space them apart more. This gives them more room to jump/ fly which is what they like.
 
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