Stainless Steel Macaw cages?

[Timneh]

Are they really worth the big bucks?
That's a lot of money for a cage when the parrot that spends most of the time on an open play tree, assuming you own a macaw or large parrot that stays on the tree stand.
I read Kings cages's powder coat holds up well for much less than a SS cage.

If SS cages are worth the dough then who makes the best quality SS macaw size cages? AE, Kings Cages, Animal Enviornment, or??


Heres a pic of the SS 506, what you say?

View attachment 19940

 

[Timneh]

Is this a good cage?
If those are plastic bowls wouldn't the macaw chew them up?
https://birdcages4less.com/Merchant...5784&Category_Code=Stainless_Steel_Bird_Cages

View attachment 19941

 

[WakaWaka]

I think it mentions that the bowls are stoneware, not plastic.
We looked at this one but decided against it because of the small front door.

If anyone else has experience with this cage, I'm sure they will chime in.
As always a log of good help here from this group.

Please see my reply to your post under cages.

Thanks
Kelly, Karl, and Arika

 

[SailBoat]

I have purchased from Bird Cages 4 Less for a very long time. They are a distributor of cages add in China and the quality of their cages have always been at or above North American cage manufacturers. Also, their shipping group only ships cages, which means that one gets all the correct parts the first time.

There is no question that Stainless Steel is the Hallmark of high-end cage construction material. If your plans are for the cage to last 20 plus years. Having it made from SS is a solid place to start. The downside is the same with any cage, the workmanship. Welding is either proper or its not. As with SS, welding for a Steel cage is its strong point or not. King Cages have a very long history of providing well constructed cages. They have moved their standard cage manufacturing to China.

Well managed China based companies can and do manufacture to World Class levels. Organizations like King and Bird Cages 4 Less have been doing this stuff for a long time. So, I trust either company.

Stainless Steel vs Powder Coated Cages: For an Amazon I go with Powder Coated Cages all the time, because although they have a good size bill. The mid-to-larger MAC's are in a class all their own. So, it all comes down to your specific MAC. If you have a MAC that loves to chew on the cage, SS is the better long term choice for your application.

At the end of the day, it all comes down to available cash! If SS is just to pricey, Powder Coat is a great fall back and will provide an excellent home for years to come.

The Cage must haves:
- Full height front door!
- As wide a front door as you can find!
- A flat top! The dome tops and pop-open tops are pretty, but with both, they are a pain to clean and in the case of the pop-tops - dangerous!
- Play top for flat top cages: Lots of choices from none to wild. Stay closer to the simple tops that are easy for your Parrot to get around on. Our Amazons have all lived on they play tops! I look at them as yet another Perch that doesn't require another stand.
- Dishes, buy extra with the cage!!! You are going to want extras or replacements later anyway. So buy them now! Dishes change over-time, finding ones for a cage can become a problem 8 - 10 years down the road.

Have Fun!

FYI: I like to build them 'up-side down' - they just line-up easier and assemble faster.

 

[Timneh]

Good recommendations Sailboat, except on the play top, some here and from what I've read Michael the Parrot Wizard do not recommend play tops. Maybe because the parrot could get territorial and the location on top of cage is not ideal for interaction and training.

There is not many good SS cage makers out there to choose from.

An awesome cage for a macaw is this Mauna Kea Mansion, anyone own one?
$4000 by wife would kill me.

https://birdcages4less.com/page/B/PROD/PA5658_SS

 

[Kentuckienne]

Our macaw has a powder coated King's Cage, and we had one for the prior birdie. The coating on the bars pretty much lasted forever, but the paint on the metal pan began to peel from all the poop soaking through the paper over the years. I would clean it and paint it every year or so. With the new cage, I put in a large plastic liner that so far the poop has not got through. The bottom is under the paper anyway. I think you can save the money and the painted cage will last a long time.

Ours has the flat top and I don't like it, he just wants to sit up there all the time and stare. I wonder if he's part vulture, and knows something we don't? It is hard to get him down off it sometimes. Oh, and get stainless steel bowls. A bird can throw a stoneware bowl and break it, plastic can't be really cleaned, but the SS bowls last forever.

 

[Timneh]

Thanks much Kentuck,
do you have the 506 or 406 or, and what color?
I agree the play top would be hard for my wife to get a macaw off it.
Funny what you said about him up there lol.
I think I will get KC and hope for the best.
Merry Christmas!

 

[SailBoat]

Good recommendations Sailboat, except on the play top, some here and from what I've read Michael the Parrot Wizard do not recommend play tops. Maybe because the parrot could get territorial and the location on top of cage is not ideal for interaction and training.

There is not many good SS cage makers out there to choose from.

An awesome cage for a macaw is this Mauna Kea Mansion, anyone own one?
$4000 by wife would kill me.

Flat top cage vs dome top cage: Hmmm, so the parrot wizard himself, advises a dome over a flat top because of possible territorial issues, - that is just sad and seriously mis-guided information. You will note that I did start with not having a play-top on the flat top as the first option (none). The addition of a play-top is optional on a flat top cage. You cannot removed the dome top without opening the top of that cage style.

Regarding 'interacting' with a territorial or training issue on a dome top. I hope that Michael provided some guidance regarding working with such a Parrot from the even higher point of a dome cage. Very Likely Not!

 

[Birdman666]

Hys need stainless steel because they are powerful enough to bust the cage welds on everything else.

The upside of stainless is it's a lifetime cage.

The downside is the expense.

I have powder coated, and end up replacing my cages every 15-20 years or so...

 

[Timneh]

I will try to find that post about he wizard’s comments about not recommending the play top.

 

[SailBoat]

I will try to find that post about he wizard’s comments about not recommending the play top.

Kindly, save your energy for a more note worthy undertaking!

You have had this Thread responded to by an individual that 'sir wizard' could barely hold a candle too! You will be much better severed by using that time to research the many Threads and Posts found on ParrotForums provided by Birdman666. I assure you, that would be a far more Note Worthy Undertaking! Plus, your MAC will be all the better resulting from that Undertaking!

 

[Timneh]

I will try to find that post about he wizard’s comments about not recommending the play top.

Kindly, save your energy for a more note worthy undertaking!

You have had this Thread responded to by an individual that 'sir wizard' could barely hold a candle too! You will be much better severed by using that time to research the many Threads and Posts found on ParrotForums provided by Birdman666. I assure you, that would be a far more Note Worthy Undertaking! Plus, your MAC will be all the better resulting from that Undertaking!

The reason I offered to search Parrot Wizard's cage play-top comments is so that I would not misrepresent what he said, and what the other posters said on that thread and by the way I believe Birdman666 responded somewhere on that thread too.
Now in my own personal opinion and from my experience, I have never recommended a play top top on a flat top cage for a macaw. I have already listed my reasons why. Many parrot people who read in this forum probably herd of the Parrot Wizard or seen his YouTube videos, so I simply used his views to reinforce my post and open it into a question to encourage others here to share there reasons why a play top cage is not ideal for a large parrot.
I will take your advice, when I have some more time I will read some of Birdman666 threads because I am open minded and eager to learn more from the many sources.

Now I know the Parrot Wizard is a bit annoying but from what I make of him from watching his many videos, he has a good heart, has wisdom and is pretty smart. I don't know too many people who fly their macaws around in their own airplanes, anyway that's just my impression of him. He is also humble, and learns from his mistakes.

The reason I like this hobby or lifestyle of owning an exotic species like a rare parrot or a turtle or tortoise type of animal is there always something new to learn, and it's also really cool.

I decided on going with a color powder coat finish because of my interior decor, and the expense of a SS. When I made this thread I knew a lot less about SS cages, I learned more about them, isn't that the purpose of this Parrot Forums?
Thanks for replying my threads.

* Please go to my other thread and help me select a cage color "Avian Adventures Hacienda Dome Top"

 

[Kentuckienne]

I don’t remember what model of cage it is...the flat top is about five feet high, the door goes all the way to the top and bottom and is about half the width of the cage. We got w white one. With the black and bronze color cages we have, the poop shows up and even when you clean it off a kind of whitish stain sometimes remains. White doesn’t seem to look dirty as fast and cleans up better. Not saying that we don’t clean poop! Cleaning poop is never ending! But the white looks cleaner. I wonder...white paint is usually titanium dioxide which is cheap, so they may really load it in there and the more pigment usually the better.

Gus has a play top but hardly goes up there. He just lurks on the flat top. Goes up now and then for a drink of water in the playtop bowl.

I think the deal with playtops and behavior is that if you have a bird with an attitude the top allows them to stay out of your reach. When I met the amazon, he had a tall playtop and he’d get up there and there was no way he was going to step up on hand or perch for me. I took the playtop off so he was just under my eye level. It didn’t make a dramatic change, but he couldn’t run up high and he was more likely to step up if I asked him. It took a while for him to be ok with me picking him up, especially if he wanted a taxi ride. I got to where I would ask politely and wait, and 9 times out of 10 he would step down from even the high perch. So having a shorter cage can help with behavior issues but you might not have any of those.

If a powder coated cage does get rust spots, you can do spot touch ups. You might even find a used one for cheap that you can get sandblasted down to the bare metal and then powder coated. Lots of places do that and it’s surprisingly not expensive. Could find a used SS cage and have it blasted clean, too. Save some green.

Sailboat is right - anything you find by Birdman666 is worth its weight in gold. He really knows macaws, has rescued some bad cases and what he doesn’t know isn’t worth worrying about. SillieN also rescues macaws and has made some near-miraculous turnarounds with tough cases. You can search for their posts, go back a few years it’s worth it.