New breeding cages, home made

[budgiefriend]

Great job! Your budgies will love their accommodations. We want to see lots of babies!

[darrenc271]

Thanks for the picts they looking brilliant uv done a great job this helps alot thanks very much m8

[suesbird]

Mmmmmmmmm my oh not impressed. I said he could make a travel cage for when they go on their holidays with some of the bits from the cage we dissected to make the big one. Toooooooooooooooooo many ideas on here

[Budgies Retreat]

Apr 19, 2015 16:08:05 GMT darrenc271 said:

Thanks for the picts they looking brilliant uv done a great job this helps alot thanks very much m8

Daz, the cage fronts come with tangs all the way around. I snipped off all of them except the bottom ones. I the photos you'll see that the fronts are held in place at the top by a piece of wood screw near to the front edge of the cage roof, and then the two turn buckles keep them secure. There are 4 tangs at the bottom which locate in holes drilled in the lower cross bar piece. There is no securing required fro the sides as the top and bottom are sufficient.

The divider is a piece of 6mm MDF painted on both sides to seal it. They slide in a piece of 6mm aluminium extrusion (top and bottom) bought from B&Q. In fact everything apart from the fronts was from B&Q. You could use plastic extrusion but they didn't have any.

My next project is to build a hospital cage with thermostat and heater. I have the unit from the States, and it is very clever in that it isn't a typical thermostat. A normal thermostat will turn on the element until it reaches it's highest set temperature and then switch off until it reaches it's lowest setting, and then turn back on again, and so on and so on. This device has a fan attached and the elements stay on, but the fan speeds up or slows down accordingly. Over a 12 hour period, there was only a 0.1 degree change of temperature. It is 12v DC powered via a transformer off the 240v grid, however I will also incorporate a 12v 9ah sealed lead acid battery within the box to be able to continue on with the exact temperature when transporting if needs require it.

It is called an IncuKit DC and is available from here incubatorwarehouse.com/48-watt-incukit-dc.html

It took about 10 days to deliver.

[Susannah]

Great work, showed hubby and he was as impressed as I...

[millsp42]

Mar 23, 2015 22:30:36 GMT Budgies Retreat said:

Here is where I am at the moment. Nearly finished, just got to cut out some bars to fit the nest box doors. This first photo is showing the dividers removed and the trays pulled out.



The second shows the dividers fitted and trays in place.

Hi there, my name is paul and i am a complete beginner, could you provide me with dimensions of the cages as i have quite a few melamine boards laying around.

Thanks in advance.

[Budgies Retreat]

Hi Paul.

The cage fronts are 24" long by 12" high. If you are going to build removable dividers as I have then you'll need to add the width of the stock x2 and the thickness of the partition board, for the total internal dimension. I used 15mm stock and 6mm MDF dividers. Make sure you paint the MDF. I also used aluminium U track for the dividers to slide in, both top and bottom of each board. This was from B&Q and has an internal size of 7mm, so it's nice and tight once the dividers are painted. Drill 2 x 3mm holes in each track to screw it to the box, and use a 6mm drill to make a countersink so the screw heads don't hinder the sliding dividers. Just countersink carefully as the ali is quite thin, so I suggest using a blunt 6mm drill.
I would also suggest that the stock bar beneath the cage front is made deeper, and the space underneath that made bigger so you can have a deeper pull-out tray, as breeding birds do huge poohs, and the small gap I left for the tray isn't tall enough to clear the poohs when I pull the trays out.

If you have any further questions feel free to post or PM me.

Daz