Lighting for cage

[djdancer]

Hey All -

I had a cage made that surrounds my bird cage when I’m not home and at night. I also use it outside. This cage is made out of pine and stainless steel 1/4” netting. I slide their 3 tier cage into it when I’m not home, when they go to bed at night and when they go outside.

Anyway, when I built this cage (to keep mice out of bird cages - thought you all must be wondering by now) I never thought about lightning. It’s very dark in the cages but there is no room for lamps. I do have a UV light across the room about 12’ away but that doesn’t help to light up the cage. We live in the country so not possible to get rid of every mouse. My birds eat pellets and chop. Cages are kept very clean. So it isn’t seed that mice are after but they don’t mind pellets. Lol. I know this is over the top protection but I love my birds.

My thought was to put LED Christmas lights (all white) in a strip of pine then put another strip to block the bulbs (like an L shape) so they can’t look directly at the bulbs but do benefit from the lights. I might also like to maybe put them on a dimmer.

This isn’t the first time I’ve run into a problem with questions on lighting with this 3 tier cage. Honestly wouldn’t have bought it if I knew about all the issues the 3 tier brings.

[SailBoat]

The beauty of lights is that they do not really care if they are mounted vertical, horizontal, from the ceiling or from the floor! Your problem is simple, you need to get the lighting lower! The lay-out of the room and other animals and Humans coming in contact with the bulbs can be a problem.

A 'possible' solution could be mouthing LED Daylight series, spot lights (commonly used in ceiling box mounted applications) dimmable series. Mount them horizontally aimed toward the bird cage(s). FYI: the goal is lighting not blasting, so watt level does not have to be able to light-up the back 40. 60 to 75 watts at most.

Understand that this arrangement will likely create shadows, so you will likely need a set on the other side to balance the area lighting.

If this is for outdoors use, rain and electrical wiring are not friends and is commonly dangerous if the proper components are not used and assembled correctly. DYI can be a serious problem!