Hobart Companion Parrot Workshop

WOW!!! - What a small but super bird nerd crew we had down there in Hobart, Tasmania this past weekend for a full day of learning about the behaviour, enrichment and training of parrots! I'd like to wholeheartedly thank Lisa Kearney for organising this event - her commitment to providing these opportunities for delivering education on the keeping of parrots to the community is stellar! Thanks also to Lisa's partner Jim (good name that ☺) who was our dedicated `chauffeur' for the weekend and made sure that I got to where I needed to be to teach and have some fun with Hobart's most dedicated parrot keepers - Lisa, Cheryl-Lee, Mark, Michelle, Jill, Joseph, Katherine, Brett & Theresa. Thanks for being such a fantastic and enthusiastic group of students and hanging in there for 7 hours of learning, chatting, networking and fun ☺

Cheryl-Lee and Mark were able to bring 3 of their flock to the workshop for me to do some demonstration work with. `T-Bird' the Blue & Gold Macaw, `Tonka' the Alexandrine, and their newest addition - a gorgeous little Green-cheeked Conure (whose name escapes me - sorry guys!). Some pics of these birds can be seen below this post.

Folks - if you want to experience this day and take your understanding of parrots as companion animals to the next level then please join us at our next workshop event - this time in Melbourne, Victoria! To access details and to register (be quick because we do cap numbers), just get in touch with Lisa Kearney via owner@friendlybirdinn.com.au or drop me an e-mail at jim@pbec.com.au and we'll hopefully see you there. The date set is Saturday April 10th - 9:30am to ~4:00pm. This is the most thorough and comprehensive workshop experience of its kind anywhere in Australia and perhaps the only real `professional development' experience available for parrot owners to enhance their level of knowledge about parrot enrichment and behaviour management.

The very cool `T-Bird' owned by Cheryl-Lee and Mark...

Working with T-Bird on stepping up and down without him using his `beak'...

A very chilled out bird indeed - Tonka the Alexandrine...

Our dedicated workshop participants - hopefully they're all awake in this photo ☺

Designing & Building Enrichment Aviaries

At the forthcoming Parrots 2010 Convention in Brisbane (July 2nd to 4th) I will be giving a presentation on designing and building enrichment enclosures for parrots. The key focus will be on creating safe and enriching outdoor flight enclosures for pet birds. Over the next couple of months I thought I would share some snippets of what will be featured in that presentation via my Blog. What I will be aiming to do is to post progress photos to show the construction of a set of three flights that I am currently building. The first couple of images below show two different angles looking at the front of the complex. The complex will be composed of three flights, each measuring 3.6m long x 1.8m wide x 2.1m high. They will be configured with a central walkway to service all three flights. The birds that will be housed in these enclosures will be various Lory species but the design could accommodate any small to medium parrot, up to the size of an Amazon. I would love for this next set of Blog entries to be interactive so if you have any questions about aviary design or construction then please contact my via e-mail at jim@pbec.com.au I won't be able to personally reply via e-mail but what I will hopefully be able to do is to share your question and suggest an answer via these Blog posts.

So far we have welded the frames for the three enclosures and the additional walkway. To do this we used 25mm square RHS box galvanised tubing. Always use galvanised tubing for aviary frames to minimise rust corrosion and always use spray gal on the welded corners after smoothing out the welding with an angle grinder. Leaving bare tubing exposed to the elements without some form of galvanising protection will result in rust forming within weeks.

Now that the welding stage is complete, we have started to wire up the frames. We were lucky in being able to buy enough Waratah WeldMesh to complete this project before BHP/BlueScope Steel stopped production. This is the safest and absolutely the best weldmesh for aviary use and I'm very concerned about the future of obtaining decent quality wire now that Waratah Mesh will be unavailable. I have heard that a few aviculturists around Australia stockpiled it before it ran out. Wish I did the same to be honest. We now have to try and source good quality, safe wire from China. I've heard that some decent quality stuff is coming out but nothing that compares to Waratah. A huge BOOOOO!!! to BHP for leaving aviculturists in the lurch by no longer providing us with the best wire in the world for parrot enclosures.

Our preference for wire is 12.5mm square mesh size We used to use 25mm x 12.5mm square mesh but given that we live in a fairly high snake density area and have had problems with snakes in the past we don't use it anymore. You would be amazed at the size of carpet python that will squeeze through inch by half inch mesh!!! Touch wood, we're yet to have a snake make it through the 12.5mm square wire and we know they try because I've relocated 4 off the aviary roofs in the last two years. Better on the roof than under it me thinks :-). We use ~1.3mm gauge thickness as it is easier to manage and in my experience, we never have problems with birds `working' it and damaging it. You do have to be careful with perching and use some common sense when securing perches to 1.3mm gauge wire as it can tear if too much strain is placed on it. In the next post I will talk about securing wire to the frame and give some tips on that.