Spare tray experiment

[Deleted]

I ended up with two replacement trays when the first one was cracked, so we've experimented with splitting the Hamberley into two floors.







They seem to be having fun exploring at the moment, and it was nice to be able to use things that don't seem to work as well in a tall cage, like the ladders.

There is a reason for this experiment. I need to split Indie and Yuki up temporarily because Indie is losing weight, Yuki has gained weight to the point that he feels chubby, and from watching them my main conclusion is that this is because Indie has been feeding Yuki a LOT. So they're getting separate living quarters for now, but hopefully with plenty of darkness they will calm, and their weights will even up from the days they can't be outside together, and then they can go back together again.

We tried a separate cage yesterday but we really don't have the space. They stack, but you need to take the top one down for covering, uncovering, and paper and food/water changing, which is very impractical. We did find a suitable space on the floor but then convincing Yuki to go in was a challenge.

Hopefully it won't be for long, but this has been fun to try, although it does make some of the height of the cage feel like it's a bit wasted. I can only ever fit in 2 pairs of perches without the lower ones getting messy.

[skysmum]

I did try this, ONCE . I was having squabbles at the time over girls

I didn't have the right tray of course and used a thin piece of ply so it wasn't a success for me as the seed and feathers flew everywhere. Hopefully with the right tray it could work better, let us know how it goes

[ariella]

What a good idea @sillycat84
I hope it works well and Indie and Yuki’s weights even out.
I bet they’re having lots of fun in and out and up and down one another’s apartments.

[Deleted]

I'm sure they will manage to get mess everywhere, skysmum!

They still have a good sized door each too.

We'll see how getting them in their respective halves works!
As well as how awkward changing paper and bowls is.

ariella It's certainly a new thing for them to explore! They might be a bit put put come bedtime though!

[ariella]

May 2, 2021 14:28:19 GMT @sillycat84 said:

I'm sure they will manage to get mess everywhere, skysmum !

They still have a good sized door each too.

We'll see how getting them in their respective halves works!
As well as how awkward changing paper and bowls is.

ariella It's certainly a new thing for them to explore! They might be a bit put put come bedtime though!

Good luck with that. Might have a bit of noisy protesting going on! 

[Deleted]

May 2, 2021 14:41:22 GMT ariella said:

May 2, 2021 14:28:19 GMT @sillycat84 said:

I'm sure they will manage to get mess everywhere, skysmum !

They still have a good sized door each too.

We'll see how getting them in their respective halves works!
As well as how awkward changing paper and bowls is.

ariella It's certainly a new thing for them to explore! They might be a bit put put come bedtime though!

Good luck with that. Might have a bit of noisy protesting going on! 

It'll be Indie yelling to Yuki. "Where are you!?"
Though he seemed okay last night when they had wholly separate cages.

[tweetiepiesmom]

Interesting and clever solution @sillycat84! I hope it works with getting them back to normal weights and is not a pain to clean up after them.

[Deleted]

Fingers crossed! Their weight is my main concern.
As for cleaning, it's just ensuring OH has enough time for it on work days, because I leave earlier than he does. There are now two bowls, two ladders and a perch that might be in his way. But we'll see how it goes. It's a bank holiday tomorrow so we're both home to see how fiddly it is.

[Deleted]

Well, other than half of them causing chaos at 4am, which they quite often do if the cage changes, things went well until the paper change, during which Indie slipped out, and then Pippin followed as OH was trying to retrieve Indie.

So we're swapping upper and lower half occupants to see if that helps.

[Marianne Marlow]

Oops. Hope they were okay?

[Deleted]

They were fine. They just went up onto their outside play areas.

Our main issue is if they do that when we're both working, because getting them back in is a challenge. Indie's normally fine, but Pippin sometimes doesn't let you close enough to realise that you're offering him millet, and OH can't catch him alone.

I'll weigh Yuki and Indie on Thursday before we go to my grandparents', as I'm most likely going to have to catch the lot of them to transfer them to the travel cage. The upside and downside of having multiple semi-tame budgies.
Downside: moving them where you want them in a nice fashion is not always easy.
Upside: you're not expecting them to want to hang around with you anyway so if you need to catch them it doesn't really matter, though it is nice if they're not scared of hands. Think I've left it a bit late for that though, and I don't normally have the time to not catch them. :/ Definitely something I want to work on with any future budgies, or other birds.

May 3, 2021 10:30:05 GMT Marianne Marlow said:

Oops. Hope they were okay?

Marianne Marlow Just realised that you might have meant overnight? Yes, they just get lost and climb around trying to find a perch but getting stuck on toys. Yuki was right next to a perch but started moving the wrong way when I uncovered the corner to help him see. So I ended up having to scoop him up and pop him on a perch because his constant pinging from climbing had kept me awake for half an hour by that point and I was out of patience.