Geodesic Dome Aviary

[Brittanyv326]

I found these on eBay. I am taken by them. I've been a bit obsessed with building an aviary ever since we bought our house in the country! These come in 20 ft, 30 ft and remind me of what zoos and things have for their birds. Could the idea be replicated at home realistically and safely? What do you think? One problem is that concrete slabbing that large of an area can be costly if you go that route. Building a second barrier between the dome and the outside world - also difficult. What are your thoughts? Could I make this work? People also sell various sized domes not specifically for birds that are a LOT cheaper, but you'd have to replicate everything else.



http://www.ebay.com/itm/Geodesic-Dome-W ... 3cd23035a4

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Geodesic-Dome-W ... 3cd23b4ff4

[Michael]

Constructed of 3/4” galvanized electrical conduit

Did you even look what it's made of??? That is not only unsafe (toxic) but it's garbage!

[Brittanyv326]

I glanced through but nopeeeeeeeeeeee did not see this!! Wow!

[Brittanyv326]

You would think you would be able to trust people are using safe materials when they're charging thousands of dollars and claiming it's safe..

Really, really sad that you can't.

[KimberlyAnn]

Ok but you can copy them and build it out of PVC pipe, right?

It would be so much cheaper and it can be something you could take down and put back up if needed. My mom used PVC with shade cloth to cover her roses in the winter so they would not die in the frost. Shade cloth won't work with parrots, but wasn't there some other netting that worked for birds?

[Michael]

The biggest question is, what do you want to achieve with this? Do you want to be able to leave the parrot in it unattended or spend time with the parrot in it?

If it's rope/netting based, you cannot leave a parrot unattended in it. Just too risky. If you plan to use it attended, you can just as well use a harness to take your parrot out without the aviary and attend it just the same. If your goal is to leave parrot unattended in it, then you must have a proper metal aviary (and ideally with a second safety netting around it to keep predators further away). Then it's going to end up not only costly but small. The bird won't fly in it so you're back to having nothing more than a big outdoor cage.

A cheap but useful suggestion for you (if outdoor/sunlight time is the goal and not flight), besides harness which is my favorite and cheapest, is to get the biggest/best cage you possibly can (possibly alum or stainless to make it last outside) and then build a cheap crappy handmade PVC/mesh/rope structure around it for protection. Since it's for keeping intruders out rather than the bird in, it doesn't matter if it's toxic or ugly as long as it is sturdy enough to do the job. Chicken wire can be used on something like that.

Just tossing some ideas. I don't want to see you wasting money. I love having an aviary, but let me tell you that it's hardly worth the price. Despite having one, I still take my parrots out to the park wearing harness cause I think it's so much better. They don't fly in the aviary nor use most of the space so it's really just a glorified cage.

[Pajarita]

It's interesting that your parrots don't fly in the outdoor aviary, Michael. I've seen videos of parrots flying around in them though (Lara Joseph's and The Oasis come to mind).

[Michael]

But wait a second, there are outdoor aviaries and then there are aviary buildings. The ones at Oasis are entire buildings with mesh. That's hardly a "backyard" aviary and cost tens of thousands of dollars. The kind of aviary you can put in your yard for $1000-$5000 your parrots, unless budgies, won't be able to or want to fly in them. For a Senegal it's just a big hop and a flap to get across. Most times they prefer to climb.

[cml]

For 5000$ you could build a HUGE aviary. I am guessing like at least 15x20x8feet ish, with stainless steel mesh. Thats a lot of volume.