Homemade Acrylic/Plexiglass cages

[banuvatt]

I thought that galvanized hardware cloth was made from steel not aluminum. I heard that aluminum is the only metal besides stainless steel that is safe for birds. Plain steel is only dangerous because of the possibility of rust.

[Pajarita]

Yes, regular wire mesh is made out of steel but not stainless steel, just regular steel. And, because regular steel rusts (A LOT), they coat it through a galvanization process with zinc or with PVC. There are also aluminum and plastic meshes, too. The cheap and common wire mesh -like the one used for chicken coops, for example- is the galvanized one. The aluminum one is more expensive because it's more flexible and doesn't rust - but it does oxidize (which is the 'dark' that appears on the surface and needs to be scrubbed off because it's toxic - something very hard to do with a mesh)

Regular steel is made out of iron and carbon while stainless steel is iron with chromium and some other stuff I now forget.

[banuvatt]

The PVC coated wire mesh I imagine would be okay with non parrots like passerines or pigeons/doves. Since parrots are notorious chewers while a PVC pipe for them may be extremely hard to chew if not impossible. A wire mesh one there's definitely a chance of them chewing/ingesting it because of how small it is so they could get their beaks around it.

This is what I found on aluminum "Aluminum is also a safe metal. It doesn’t rust like iron or steel, but instead corrodes into aluminum oxide, a grayish white substance that is powdery in appearance. Unlike rust, aluminum oxide is non-toxic when ingested or handled." This is the link to where I got the information https://birdtricksstore.com/blogs/birdt ... %20handled.

[Pajarita]

I do not trust anything that is put out by the bird industry. Period. See this:

https://www.dermaglide.com/aluminum-oxi ... h-hazards/

[banuvatt]

Thank you for sharing that information with me, I'll sure to only use stainless steel. I read to prevent steel wire mesh that had the galvanizing removed from rusting to paint over it with a bird safe paint such as Rust-oleum or Kylon not sure how true that is though.

[Pajarita]

You do not need to do anything to stainless steel - no paint, no stripping, no washing, no nothing - it's good as it is as long as it's stainless steel and not regular steel.

[banuvatt]

If I made you kind of confused I am sorry I was talking about if I were to use bare steel then I would have to paint it.