Hamberley Set Up Help Please!

[Deleted]

The lighting isn’t great for the photos, sorry.

i’m trying to set up the Hamberley for Indie and Yuki to hopefully share in peace. I’m just having trouble making the most of the height of it seeing as they’ll probably mostly stick to higher perches and I have quiet a few long perches.

The swings could also each fit two budgies, and I could do with smaller ones. But Karen of the NaturalBirdCo already kindly sorted out some food perches for me, other than a veggie perch because Darran puts the kabobs together by hand, so I don’t want to go bothering them again when I have stuff to work with for now.

Those of you with Hamberleys or similar cages (I think you have something similar Hezz?) how have you set them up to make the most of the space?

[tweetiepiesmom]

@sillycat84 I have a similar cage. I thought I'd post a picture of my setup. I have most of the toys in the upper half. Buddy likes the swing to sleep on but Tweetie Pie will not sleep on a swing - he likes a perch near the top. They just recently started to use the perches in the lower half of the cage. Mostly they go there to "chill out" - they are resting not playing. Buddy goes down lower to madly flap his wings to tell me to open the cage door! As they start using the lower half more, I'll add more toys down there. I also have their food/water/treat cups up high. Neither seems to be into foraging yet. Pardon the messy cage. Today is major cleaning day so when they come out this afternoon I can get in there to clean.

[Deleted]

tweetiepiesmom That looks like a fun cage! Those two are such little characters! Love Buddy flapping for the cage to be opened!

I think I need to put the bowls higher because currently they keep ending up in them when chasing about. I like them low down to give them a reason to go low, but it then risks them getting pooped in and I can’t put anything above them. I used to have one that liked a swing and one that didn’t.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Here's my guys chilling out waiting for me to let them out to fly around. If you enlarge the picture you can see they both have their eyes closed.

[Hezz]

Yes, @sillycat84, I do have something very much the same. I have very few short perches, though. All of mine have come from my own foraging so I've cut them to fit running front to back, making the most of the open space in between perches for them to flit back and forth across the cage. Swings hang from the top in the middle but against the sides if that makes any sense and I put their toys around the edges close to the perches for ease of reach, although the two being middle aged old fogies don't really do much playing any more.

I like your setup, but would agree with putting the food and water up higher to keep them clean. You could put favourite toys, fresh food etc lower down to give them reason to go down lower, but with only the two in there, they have plenty of room up high to be apart when they want without going down lower. If there were say four birds in the cage, you'd find that the lower level would be much more utilised. Just make sure, or try to at least, to keep the very centre space of the cage free from toys or perches so that they can flit around through the middle, up, down and across. With swings I've found that none of my birds have ever liked the swings that have only one hanging point, even as youngsters, but give them a swing with two and I've only had one budgie (Smudge) who hasn't loved it, and particularly for sleeping. Loki doesn't like a swing either but for this conversation he doesn't count, he isn't budgie.

[Deleted]

tweetiepiesmom They’re so gorgeous!

Hezz I think I understand what you mean regarding the swings. If I rotate them 90 degrees then they’ll take up a narrower space.
My long perches only reach about 2/3 of the way across, but that’s okay for now. Probably little point having short perches inside. I’ll use them outside to make landing places. I’m hoping they can come out a fair amount so won’t need the ‘exploration’ aspect of inside so much as they’ll need the flight space for when I’m at work.
Think I’ll put seed one end and water and veggies the other, swings in the middle, and then have the main perches far apart for flight space. If I can get a couple more long perches then I’ll probably go for slightly varying levels.

I can imagine Munchy’s expression if he’d actually had to fly when inside a cage!

I always want to have enough perches to swap things around, but usually find one arrangement that works well and everything else feels less successful...


Indie’s like a middle-aged man already with toys, but that’s not surprising given that he was in an aviary with no toys for at least a year.
Yuki is occasionally playing and attempting to nibble at vegetables.

[Hezz]

There usually is one setup that works better than any other, but having multiples of different perches does mean that you can do mirror images of the setup that works best. Also beware of running all your perches dead straight. Get a few long ones that are long enough so that you can angle them across the cage - a bit hard to do with perches that only go so far, but keep your eye out for branches that you can use in this way. As an example, one of my cages is 54cm deep, a perch straight across needs to be at least 57cms to be long enough to be fitted through the bars and not fall down. To angle a perch from one set of horizonals to another you will need at least 60cms to fit a perch so that it doesn't fall. A little more is always better than a little less. Where was I going with that?? ... if you do get to do some foraging for perches, look for interesting ones, not too much detail (that just ends up getting in the way), not too straight and have an idea of the sort of length you need beforehand. Very frustrating to find that you've brought home a whole heap of uselessness.

[Deleted]

Yes, I see what you mean! I might try to investigate my grandparents’ garden if they don’t mind me taking some things. Hopefully there’ll be a variety of thicknesses.

[Deleted]

Hezz Here’s what I’ve switched to for now.






It’s fairly simplistic, but I think that’s okay to start with. It should make it easier to position myself and/or the taxi stick for taming and training sessions, because earlier I couldn’t get my hand into a good position for Yuki to eat.

I’m struggling a bit with getting the heights of perches right to hang toys. I’m much more used to mostly horizontal bars rather than mostly vertical. I’ll have less choice of height if I don’t use perches with fittings on the ends, as they’d have to rest on the horizontal bars, but long ones that I can angle would give me more directional options. But I can always use a combination of both.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Thank you, @sillycat84! I love my little guys and don't need much encouragement to post a picture!

Interesting thread. I have a couple ideas now on how to change some things up in y guys cage.

[Deleted]

I like gathering ideas. Not massively creative by myself.

Thus far the only issue is that the food perches being high are getting sat on with bums over bowls, so I might have to switch back to the bowls that sit in the hoops instead. Or else find decent silo feeders (though Yuki refused to drink from a bottle at the breeder's and needs a bowl).


Edit: Hmm... I’m still not exactly happy with the layout... but it’ll do for a minute.

Hezz tweetiepiesmom What are your emergency measures with this size of cage? Hezz, I know you usually train your birds to accept handling, so you might be able to grab them quickly, but being on the third floor of the house I don’t think I could get the cage down the stairs in a hurry if there was an emergency situation. But then, the amount of time I’d require to catch them if I haven’t managed to train them to accept it would probably be somewhat equivalent to the amount of time it would take two of us to get down the stairs with the cage...

Just something I’ve been thinking about. I could keep them down in the book-nook on the ground floor, but probably wouldn’t see them much.

[Hezz]

My emergency plan is to put all three boys into the small(er) spare cage, to which I have attached handles on the sides, and Mango (if needed to be moved) can either stay in her cage as is, or use the little carry cage. If I had to get out of the house quickly the big cages are useless in that they can't be moved by one person, not up and down stairs anyway, nor would they fit into a vehicle. They are great for inside the house and can be wheeled anywhere, out onto the deck in particular for a bit of winter sun.

The two smaller cages, Mango being in the larger of these, are quite light flight cages. Her's is 45x45x75cm (HxDxL) so still a decent size of a little disabled bud, and the other is a bit smaller than that, but not a lot.

I wouldn't set the cage up so that perches need to be removed before you can close all the doors. There may be times when you need to close doors quickly for safety reasons. I've also got the little side doors permanently closed as Loki learnt very early on how much fun they were to pop open, and that's another reason I don't like those little slide up doors that most cheaper cages have. Too many escape routes. I don't think the Hamberley had any of those, though ... does it?

[tweetiepiesmom]

My guys are not tame enough to sit on my hand and move to another cage. If I had to get them out of the house, I'd have to grab them and put them in their travel cage. Buddy is easier to catch and I can grab him with my hand. He'd go first. Then I'd have to "chase" Tweetie Pie to the bottom and throw a tea towel over him to catch him. Tweetie Pie is fast as lightning so that would be a challenge. Hopefully I won't have an emergency and be forced to do that. I'm still working with them and hoping I'll get to where I can move them on my hand to their travel cage. Like Hezz said, their cage is too big to move out to a car and my car is too small for it to fit anyway.

[Deleted]

Thanks both. I could leave the travel cage set up, or I’ve been toying with the idea of a second, smaller cage anyway for training. My housemate suggested leaving the travel cage downstairs, just grabbing them, and then he’d grab the cage on the way out and set it up. But I definitely couldn’t grab a budgie one-handed, so I’d need one of those cotton drawstring bags like the bird-ringers use for holding the birds they’ve taken out of the net. Of course, this assumes that they were even in their cage at the time.

[Hezz]

Exactly - assuming the birds were in the cage at the time. The little boys usually are keen to go home because that means they have a chance to feast on seed. They are locked out of their seed-haven generally during the day, and Loki is easy to bribe home ... a little piece of peanut or almond will do that trick.