Should perches span the entire cage?

I'm planning on making the perches for my cage this week. I'm just wondering if the perches should so an the entire cage or can they only go part of the way across the cage? I've seen both and I am thinking that perches that don't cover the entire cage will provide more exercise and stimulation as they will have to climb around more. They also wouldn't be as hard to make, although that's not going to be a factor in my decision. I could also attach toys to the ends of the perches of they only go part way.

I honestly don't think it matters to the bird I switch around Kiwi's perches (positions) about 1X a year, and sometimes I'll do a full length perch, other times not. They should have room to move around, play and climb, but how you set up the perches is up to you! Also, keep in mind perches should be switched out (or moved around) every so often, so if you add a "full length" perch now and decide there would be a better option for your bird, you could always swap it out for a different one later. And if you want to hang toys from the perches, use STAINLESS hardware. Any other type of metal could contain zinc and be poisonous.

One other thought, my mom uses all natural manzanita in the cockatoos cage (which is a big cage thats wide), and selects LARGE pieces with many smaller branches jutting off from a larger branch she can install "upright" like a tree for him instead of having many small branches around the cage. I don't know what kind of wood you're using or the cage size, but thats a possibility to consider too All she does is sand off sharp points.

I don't use perches that span the entire cage but its really just a personal preference. As long as the perches are natural their feet will receive plenty of excerise.

That did provoke a bit of thought Matt lol! I guess were just 'used to' seeing at least 1 perch going all the way across, but now that it think about it, it's not that way in nature. I mean a tree is randomly shaped with all sorts of branches that have one sided attachments.

RavensGryf said:

That did provoke a bit of thought Matt lol! I guess were just 'used to' seeing at least 1 perch going all the way across, but now that it think about it, it's not that way in nature. I mean a tree is randomly shaped with all sorts of branches that have one sided attachments.

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Now that I think about it the only time I have had a perch going all the way across was with my first bird because the only perches the bird had was the dowels that came with the cage. However after that one I haven't had a perch go across the cage. Depending on how perches come with the cage tomorrow I may have a perch going across the cage as I do intend to keep one dowel perch (and I will be putting a second one in there I bought seperately) just for size variences. But I don't know we will just have to see tomorrow. But all my other perches will be natural ones.

I put perches across from front to back on either end of the cage, leaving room for the bird to fly across the middle. Sometimes they are the kind that screw onto the cage in which case they do not go all the way across most of the time, but I don't think it matters as much as the room in the middle to fly, or in the case of a very large parrot I guess, to climb.

Thanks for al the opinions and advice guys. I think it will go with perches that don't go the full way across, I think it gives me more options with what I can do. I'm planning on using a mix of eucalyptus, bottle brush and paperbark. That should give them some entertainment pulling the bark off I hope.

I actually had thought of something like that Kiwibird, unfortunately I think it would take up most of the space in my cage. I would like to get a piece of wood with lots of branches to use as a play gym though for when he's out of the cage.