Our aviaries will be used as full time cages during non-winter months. Here in Virginia we can’t keep the birds out all year round due to a few cold months and “very” cold nights. Once we get the birds into the aviaries we will be keeping them in the aviaries all the time. We won’t bring them in at night, although, we do have indoor cages for all our birds in case we should have “severe weather”. Currently we keep over half of our birds in their cages outdoors on either a deck up against the house or in an enclosed porch. Since putting the cages outdoors earlier this year these birds are so much healthier and happier. Their colors have improved, they are now getting proper sleep at night and they are also eating much better.

Three of our birds are well over 12 years old. One, is over 30 years old. All three have been housed indoors in cages with lighting most, if not all, their lives. All three of these birds became lethargic and basic perch potatoes. None of them played with toys anymore. And their desire to communicate with their people withered. Their eating habits were horrible. Two of the birds became very aggressive.

Angry Amazon

Considering what living indoors with limited space and not much stimulation for their lives, I don’t blame them for getting angry at the world around them.

Since putting them on a pellet and fresh food diet combination these three started to come out of their shells. They started to communicate more and occasionally play with toys in their cages. The truly amazing change came when we moved their cages outside and gave them natural daylight.

Just moving them out to where they have natural daylight hours and sleeping hours they wanted to try new foods with interest, they became interested in toys and foraging on the bottom of the cages. The transformation was amazing to watch. The birds all started talking to us and to each other once again.

The new feathers they were growing in after molting out old ones had amazing color!

Beautiful colors

All these changes brought us to the decision to get outdoor aviaries. So we did our research and found the ones we thought would fit our situation the best.

Our intention for the aviaries was, and is, to use them as full time housing that allows our birds flight access and lots of exercise. We will use them  as 24 hour housing unless the night time temperature drops below 38 degrees at night. As long as the daytime temperature is above 45 degrees the birds will be outside during the day at least. Just the benefits of the fresh air and the sunlight to our birds is well worth having them outside and not right in the room with us.

The amazing benefits of having to exercise to get to their food and water, and the ability to fly from perch to perch or forage on the ground will be more than we could give them indoors. The new sights and sounds of being outside and hearing the wind, watching birds and all the other sights and sounds of nature are amazingly beneficial  for them.

If you stop to think about what a wild bird encounters in just one afternoon in the wild, our “caged” friends live like hermits in comparison. We can not possibly offer them anywhere near as much as nature itself. The safest way to do this for our birds is to put them in outdoor aviaries. This not only gives them the benefits of nature, it also keeps them safe.

For those that can not afford aviaries, just putting your birds cage outside can be extremely beneficial to your bird.

But, please remember that there are so many dangers to a caged bird without supervision. Just to name a few, cats, dogs, and strangers. Please remember to always make sure your bird can get in and out of direct sunlight. Never leave a caged bird in its cage in direct sunlight. The bird can overheat very fast.

As I am sure you have heard many times before, when it comes to cages for birds, “the bigger the better” keeping in mind proper bar spacing for the size of your bird.

Never leave a caged bird unattended outside.