Stainless steel cages - diy?

[ruban]

Hi Everyone

I‘ve had a few cages over the years and noticed one may get less today for the same price. The cage previous to the one I have now I purchased for roughly $400, and it lasted a year. The powder coat on my medium sized popular brand cage failed in a number of places and the poop tray was worse. I have to clean frequently because I have a lorikeet.

After attempting to get spare parts and the manufacturer kept sending incorrect parts, I tossed the cage for something new. I now have a medium sized aluminum cage which I had all hopes would be better. Ruban is in this cage now.

In my mind, aluminum, or better yet, stainless, were superior building materials. After a year of using the aluminum cage, i’ve had to replace a few parts. One bowl ring where the weld rusted, and a lock. My weekly thorough cleaning process takes an enormous amount of time. The way in which aluminum cages are constructed leaves many perpendicular joints and connections that are harder to clean, and large rectangular tubes are hollow meaning everything needs deconstruction eventually. You never know what can hide inside the main rectangular construction bars. I find that bird droppings also etch aluminum more easily.

My brain a.t.m. Is thinking about a new purchase or DIY stainless which I could fabricate to dimensions that make it easier to clean. It seems as though large expensive stainless cages are for large expensive birds. Is there are easy path to a medium sized stainless cage? It appears to be a rarity.

 

[LaManuka]

I was forced to go down the path of stainless steel about three years ago, when my TINY purple crowned lorikeet managed to chew a chunk of powder coating off a brand new cage in her efforts to get into my cockatiel's cage and steal his breakfast. I don't know how she did it - she does have a hugely strong bite for such a tiny bird, but even so, for her to have been able to remove powder coating from a new cage I can only imagine that it's because some manufacturing processes nowadays leave a lot to be desired.

There does not appear to be great deal of variety available in Australia and I found the whole cage-buying process to be hugely depressing. Rather than throw more good money after bad buying another powder coated cage which might also have proven to be of dubious quality, after that experience I decided to bite the bullet, go "top shelf" and buy stainless steel by "Featherland".

I do love those cages and I wish I could give them 5 stars out of 5 but there are a couple of niggly things that annoy me about them. Firstly, and this is probably the result of incorrect assumption on my part, they do develop little tiny spots of rust. Only very tiny ones mind you, and it's nothing a a quick rub with a bit of steel wool at pressure-washing time doesn't fix, but it's just annoying. The design of the cages is quite ingenious, they come in a flat pack and you just unfold them in concertina fashion and they are held in place when you affix the top, grate and tray. I'm not sure if this is the case with other brands, as Featherland was the *only* brand available in Australia so I didn't get a choice in the matter, but the whole structure of cage and stand is all one piece, which makes them very heavy and awkward to move. They're fine if you're just wheeling them between rooms on a level floor, even better if it's hard flooring like we have, but it's a two person job to get them in and out of the house for proper cleaning with a pressure washer if there are stairs involved. And when we lift them down the stairs to get them outside, invariably at least one of the casters falls out. They also come with those very annoying seed guard things that fix to the outside and supposedly catch mess before it falls to the floor. In my opinion stuff is going to fall to the floor anyway and the seed guard is just another surface that I have to keep clean so I have never bothered using them. Plus they make the cage even wider and more difficult to manoeuvre through a doorway.

All in all I do really like them, they're pretty easy to keep clean, especially with a lorikeet. The medium size that I have has a 5/8th inch bar spacing which is actually fine for my cockatiel, budgie and purple crowned terrorist. My lorikeet has one to herself because she does not mix well with others, and my budgie and cockatiel share the other although they are rarely locked in together. Actually my budgie likes his so much that he often sits inside it virtually all day with the door wide open - he likes to just sit in it all day and sing I feel like if I had a larger lorikeet like a rainbow or your yellow-bib and I had the floor space and budget for it, I would go for the "large" size cage at least, presuming the wider 1 inch bar spacing is not an issue. Also presuming that you can handle it's size and weight because that would be one VERY large and bulky bird cage!

Maybe someone else can help you out on the DIY side of things, but even with the odd niggle and gripe here and there, overall I am very happy with the stainless steel cages that I have. Which is a very good thing considering the extortionate price I paid for them - but at least they should not need replacing for a very long time, if indeed they ever do.

 

[ruban]

Thanks for your thoughtful reply, LaManuka.

I usually forget stainless shouldn’t rust, but 304 is rust resistant, not rust proof. There is perhaps nothing else that can be used that is better than commonly available 304. Aside from having surfaces that can’t be touched by bi4ds like something with acrylic walls.

The old powder coated cage was ingenious in the fact the upper cage portion could be lifted off and easily carried outside or placed in my big bath tub for a cleaning. Now that I remember, the powder coated cage would still rust from the inside of the hollow tubing. The aluminum cage is all one piece so it is harder to carry. It doesn’t rust but it is a pain to keep clean.

Featherland appears to have some nice cages. Speaking with Ruban’s breeder, he mentioned it is preferable to use a rabbit cage which is a suggestion that makes me wonder.

A medium sized cage is fine for Ruban and myself. If something is easier to clean and handle, it will be cleaned better and more often.. Ruban is out a lot too and his cage is a place to sleep, eat, and play, swinging from plastic chains. Saying that, I tend to think cage width is more important than height for some birds, maybe.

I am sure they don’t make titanium bird cages yet, haha. Featherland is probably my best bet lest I can make one more suitable.

 

[LaManuka]

You're most welcome ruban I absolutely LOVED Fang's older (new!) cage and hated having to get rid it, it was just about perfect! It too could be separated between cage and stand, and I was actually able to modify the stand so that it was much lower but still on wheels, which was awesome because I'm so short, so therefore Her Royal Brattiness was unable to escape my clutches when it was bedtime! It was also a bit wider than the Featherland model, and like you I think width is more important than height. Broke my heart to have to chuck it, but I felt like once the integrity of that powder coating was breached that it was pretty well useless. If ONLY I could have got that style in stainless steel it would've been absolutely perfect, but the model that I've ended up with is pretty darned good and i do feel as though they were worth the extra $$.

I wish you the best of luck in your quest 🙏

 

[ruban]

Thank-you!
Purple-crowned terrorist, lol. They are, aren’t they. Something about Lorikeets that make them such lovable terrorists Haha. It is a form of appreciation that grows over time for these fearless assertive birds.

There are a number of places to get T304 wire cage mesh and other forms of stainless steel. I know a few people who can work with it… I’m gonna see if I can whip something safely basic and functional together. Raw SS is still fairly pricey. After-which if I give up, lol, perhaps a medium sized SS cage is in order. I‘ve become less impressed with aluminum cages. They are built in a manner making them easy to build, rather than clean.

 

[LaManuka]

Oh i would LOVE to "know a guy" who could custom make something for me! There are a few people over here who do build them to order but I found the whole process a bit daunting which is why I chickened out and went for ready-made. If you do end up getting one built for you I hope you will post some pics, I'd love to see it!