Aviary Advice

SilverCell

Regular Member
Hi everyone, we have been throwing the idea around our house on building an outdoor aviary in the garden, its just an idea at the min and I'm just trying to find out information from others that have outdoor aviaries. I would like to keep conures quakers and other small parrots with the goal of attempting breeding. I have a space where I can build a 10-12ft x 6ft x 7ft flight area and a 6x6 indoor area most likely a shed. I have never done anything like this before so I need advice on how many birds could live comfortably in this space and which species get along well together. I know nothing about breeding so any advice on that is most welcome. Is this a reasonable size aviary ?. The building of the aviary I have all worked out more or less.
 
Regarding the building, am I right in thinking that 13mm mesh is the right size ? I also need to know about the indoor roosting area and what is needed inside the shed.
 
Well I guess first of all have to ask about the proximity of neighbours, conures and even more so quakers can be REALLY noisy!

If noise is not an issue then decide what you want to keep, conures ideally need to be kept in pairs in individual aviaries one pair per enclosure so you could split the aviary, maybe in a 6x6 shed you could have 3@ 2x2 indoor cages going out to flights 2x10 for pairs or if you want just quakers you can house them in a colony in the size you have.

The only parrotlike which will mix for breeding in my opinion are quakers, cockatiels and budgies (single species), I would say everything else needs to be in pairs and also the divisions need to be double wired to stop fighting/toe biting between flights. If you go down the first route I would make solid partitions between the indoor part so you can put up boxes inside and the pairs will have privacy.
There are some pics on here of an aviary I recently built which may give you more idea of what I mean

half inch mesh or half by 1 is ok but I would go 16 gauge for quaker size or medium conures

Hope this helps a bit
 
Hi marley thanks for the reply, could you tell me where your pics are located so I can take a look. Never thought about the noise how noisey are we talking? My plan was to get say a pair of green cheek conures a pair of sun conures, jenday conures and maybe a pair of quakers. I was thinking 8 birds altogether. So do these species need to be separated then ? can they not share the same flight space?
 
Jendays, suns and quakers would likely get the council round if you are in a built up area, for breeding you could not mix those species in my opinion.

You could look at building a large shed with indoor flights which would help with the noise?
 
marley said:
Jendays, suns and quakers would likely get the council round if you are in a built up area, for breeding you could not mix those species in my opinion.

You could look at building a large shed with indoor flights which would help with the noise?
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Really that bad, Ive clearly got a lot more research to do. Can you advise on other parrot like species that are not as noisey ? I do live in an estate so I do have close neighbours.
 
another point is quakers that are breeding are very protective of there area and should only be housed with other quakers or you may end up with dead birds
 
Stufed one's do not make any noise and are easy to look after!Seriously you may get away with the small amount of noise that Green Cheeked Conures make.Forget the rest and separate aviaries are needed (Quakers will breed in colonies but prefer a very large aviary,when I had them I let them fly free!)
 
Michael Reynolds said:
another point is quakers that are breeding are very protective of there area and should only be housed with other quakers or you may end up with dead birds
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Thanks for the reply Michael, I'm going to have to reconsider what species I'm going to keep, going off the replies Ive had I think I am best off just sticking to one or two species and have a divided shed and flight area.
 
I went to see a guy about a conure a couple of weeks ago and he had about 8 to 10 green cheek and pineapple conures with budgies and these doves all in the same flight area not divided or anything. I'm guessing that this is wrong and they shouldn't be together like that ?
 
Hi @SilverCell i think the guys and girls have got this one covered,many people have tried and failed keeping different species and mutliple pairs together and sometimes you get away with it until breeding season then all hell breaks lose.the only mixed aviary i had success with was with finches, neophoma parakeets and a pair of plumheaded parakeets but this was a huge planted aviary with lots of retreats.ive also had colonies of lovebirds which worked well with only a few problems and the odd bitten toe.ive had swift parakeets in a colony also which were very nice birds.im building aviaries at present but with close neighbours noise is a concern so for me im going with austrailian kings and the always a pleasure plumheads,seperate aviaries i should add.
 
SilverCell said:
Really that bad, Ive clearly got a lot more research to do. Can you advise on other parrot like species that are not as noisey ? I do live in an estate so I do have close neighbours.
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Of the conures the Pyrrhuras family so green cheeks, maroon belly, black cap etc are about the least noisy, of small parrots maybe meyers or senegals, a single pair of cockatiels of which there are some really pretty colours now should be ok, maybe a pair of kakarikis? It's a bit of a lottery because all birds are individuals and even within species some can be worse than others, I have a pair of rescue sun conures here and the male is a bloody nightmare but the hen is not too bad.
 
SilverCell said:
I went to see a guy about a conure a couple of weeks ago and he had about 8 to 10 green cheek and pineapple conures with budgies and these doves all in the same flight area not divided or anything. I'm guessing that this is wrong and they shouldn't be together like that ?
Click to expand...

The problem is when they start to breed the chances of the conures turning nasty is very high and I would not be surprised to find birds with missing legs ( a favourite conure attack) in that flight and males will fight over certain mates or boxes plus enter other birds boxes causing fights. Mixed flights are rarely successful in breeding situations.
 
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