Woo hoo! Have you talked to him yet about details like the removable partition? Although once the aviary has been built it probably wouldn't be too difficult for you to make your own partition, maybe with some help from your grandfather.

Will he be building it in a way that makes it easy to replace damaged components? This mostly means using screws instead of nails, but there might be other aspects of the construction that can be made more user-friendly by making some simple adjustments during the building process. For example putting the screws/nails on the side of the panel where they're easy to reach instead of on the bottom side of the panel where they'll be resting against the floor.

Do you actually get to help or will you just be watching? Either way it'll be a major learning experience.

No, I haven't. I think I got the hormone issue solved out.



I'm not sure. Our current aviary has screws.



I will be watching. How do I tell him to make wall panels instead of going around the cage with the wire? I don't know how he is going to do it. Our current aviary is just wire wrapped around the wood poles. We are going to use tile they didn't listen to me.

Oh well, the tile probably won't be any worse than having concrete. Who knows, it might even be better.

The wire probably won't interfere much with replacing a wood beam if you have to. It's more in the way they put the wood beams together and attach them to the foundation and the roof. The wire will be have to be attached to the wood frame one way or another and you'll have to undo it a little bit to take a piece of wood out. But I'd have to do that with my aviary too if I needed to replace a piece of wood. With my aviary the wire is stapled to the wood, and I'd have to pull out the staples, replace the wood, and then staple the wire to the new piece of wood.

If the wire got damaged and you had to replace a section, you might have to install the new piece a little differently than the old piece depending on how they did it the first time. For example if they took one long piece and wrapped it all the way around the aviary, you wouldn't want to replace the whole thing just because one small area was damaged. But you could cut out the damaged part and find a reasonable way to patch in a new piece, maybe stapling the ends of the wire to a piece of wood that wasn't previously used this way.

I'm curious about how you're going to deal with hormone problems in the future.

Thank you.



Well, my birds never, ever laid an egg in the aviary. So it won't really matter if they mate. We are also making something that we can roll down a tarp to protect against heavy rain and winter. I can also use it for long nights.

Where can I get those parts?

My birds aren't outside, but the room they're in is tiled and it's very easy to clean. So that's something. Are you going to post pics when it's done?

Of course I will!

Any big hardware store should have the parts for making perches out of natural tree branches. Look in the section of the store where they have nails, screws, nuts, washers, etc. The big Ace Hardware stores in my area have loose hardware parts organized in bins or drawers where you can pick out exactly what you want, sort of like the bulk bins in a grocery store. Sometimes stuff gets into the wrong bin, so I always screw the nut onto the bolt while I'm in the store to make sure it's the right size. Lowes and Home Depot have less of the loose stuff and more of the prepackaged stuff so sometimes you have to buy a little more than you really want.

The hardest part for me is remembering the name of the hanger bolts so I can give a sensible answer it the clerk asks what I'm looking for.

The article says you have to have stainless steel washers but I don't think it makes a difference. The tiels usually don't chew on the hardware and don't damage it even when they try.

Thank you.

The aviary frame is done! It looks beautiful. I'm so excited