major good stuff!

View attachment 16951So my wonderful guy was at the scrapyard last weekend while I was off driving a school field trip and you will never guess what he found! A big bird cage! built for a macaw I believe. It was dented a bit but he straightened it out. It is five feet tall and forty inches wide and thirty inches deep. Only one of the wheels was on it and the bottom tray was missing, but we can work around that. We have put a piece of plywood in the bottom and we will be making a trip to the hardware store soon for wheels. Meanwhile it is going up on cinder blocks outside so Charlie and/or Paulie can hang out while mom (that's me ) gardens in the yard. The cage went for scrap metal price so it cost us less than $35! I still cannot believe we found it! We power washed it and have attached some natural wood perches. It will be our outside cage until we are finished remodeling the house so we have enough room to bring it inside. At the moment out cages take up fully a third of our living room, half if you count the couch as their territory (the birds do!) Any suggestions about what else I should do to make sure it is safe for my birdies? It has the original paint and a rust spot or two where the bottom tray should be (the plywood covers that) My fella will work on sandblasting it over the summer so I need to research safe paint for bird cages. He sure does a lot of work for birds that bite him every time he tries to touch them!

Well congratulation of the find! It appears to be a Lani Lai Lodge or Kilavea Kastle series cages commonly sold thru Bird Cages 4 Less. I am going to guess that it has a little age and as a result doesn't match currently sold cages. However, there maybe some parts that will still work. Go to Bird Cages 4 Less site, select extra large cages then replacement parts in the drop downs under cages. The bottom tray will be the hardest to find because it will need to be a dead on match in size.

I have purchased these cages over the years and have found that they hold-up very well and the top to bottom front door make them very easy to work in the cage setting-up perches and toys. Also much easier to clean.

They are powder coated and if the only place there is any rust is where the bottom pan wore the paint, I would not paint the upper sections of the cage. Powder coated surfaces can be very difficult to remove. Yes, sand blasting will work, BUT whatever you put back on will not be as resilient. Yes today, there are some truly great shaker can paints on the market. However, if the upper section of the cage are in good shape, its not worth the time. Target only the ware areas and limit over-spray.

Have Dad read the first Tread of the Amazon Forum regarding Amazon Body Language, which is high lighted in light blue. Best way is for him to be sitting just outside your Amazon(s) cage(s) and have him read it aloud. If he is not big on reading in front of other - leave the room or work outside for a while. Two things: One, He gains some knowledge regarding what the Amazons are telling him (their body language) and Two, Amazons love to be read too. Call it a starting point.

Power Washing does an excellent job of getting the big job, hard stuff off, but are not great at fine point cleaning. I would recommend Dawn Dish Washing soap in a bucket of hot/warm water and with a plastic scrub pad to detail the cage. Hose spray prior to and after and let dry in the Sun shine. The goal is to get any remaining 'stuff' off the cage and let the Sun shine kill anything else.

FYI: Watch your smaller parrot closely! This size cage will have a fairly wide bar spacing designed for larger parrots.

Nice find. Like Sailboat said Wash good. Just to be safe

SailBoat said:

FYI: Watch your smaller parrot closely! This size cage will have a fairly wide bar spacing designed for larger parrots.

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This cage is only for the Amazons, the quaker would be GONE! She is a housebird only

Nice find! Properly disinfect it before you let your bird touch it though, I don't think power washing will do much for disinfecting, but more for cleaning dirt off it, but I've never used a machine like that before so I'm not entirely sure whether I'm right or wrong, just a concern. Great find though, saves you a whole lot of money!


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