| Chris,
All depends on what you aim for and what birds you keep.
Even in the parrot group the actual species differ considerably in
their demands.
Amazones, Rosellas and several other flying parrakeets take to large,
4 x 1.5 x 1.8 m. very well.
Macaw's like standing, rather high aviaries better.
Cockatoos like a lot of ground space and in general need the most
space.
At present I keep my cockatoos in a large, standing, glass walled cage
with a sliding gauze front. They spend a lot of time on a free standing
climbing tree daily.
I am planning a large aviary outside to accomodate them when they have
reached their breeding age next year.
When designing cages or aviaries:
- always keep the cleaning aspect in mind. Hanging cages can have
pro's in this respect.
- With parrots it is wise to seperate adjourning aviaries by a strip of
planting of about 1 m wide.
- Placing food and water at opposite ends neccessitates activity from the
birds.
- Make inspection of the nest box, operating the fly-hole hatch,
replacing the bowls etc. possible from outside the cage.
- Make the nesting, night area, "cosey". Which means dark walls are
freferred to light ones.
- There is no substitute for open air, sun and natural rain.
There are quite a few very good and thourough books about this subject.
Peter
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Avalon is in a Animal Environments Macaw Cage, and
there is a large Manzanita "tree" next to his
cage, both are on wheels, and take up a good
portion of the family room.
-dick
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