Dear Parrots magazine,
Access to rain
When I bought my aviary three years ago, I could not make up may mind whether or not the roof should completely cover the flight, but opted for one that did.
I keep budgies and Bourkes together and they seem fine but have always thought that they should have access to the elements, and in particular, rain. In the wild, they would have access to all the elements so thought I should try to give them as much of the same as possible.
My next door neighbour is a carpenter and obviously handy with wood working tools, so between us, I thought we could modify the aviary and open up some of the flight area. Well, I wanted to do this in one day to reduce the disturbance to a minimum. We managed to catch all the birds and move them to travelling cages in one of my sheds.
Off came the roof of the aviary and soon we had replaced half of the flight area with wire mesh. The job was carried out much quicker than I had thought, and soon the birds were back in their aviary home. They had a good look around but soon settled and were happy sitting under the new open area.
Now this bit you won’t believe. About an hour and a half later, the sky clouded over and it began to rain. Nothing heavy, just a shower. To my amazement, two of the budgies took up a position under the new open section and were soon enjoying the rain. I couldn’t believe this but it completely justified the change.
Arthur Baker - by email