Permanent Outdoor Traveling Aviaries For Parrots

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Camelot Macaw

After just a few days of letting our birds into our new travel aviary invention… we spoke with our general manager here on the circus about finding a more permanent aviary to use for them.

After only about a week without their normal sunlight (aviaries from home where they stay outside year round) all of our birds have begun to lose color in their plumage. The brightness has dimmed… in just a week’s time!

We knew we had to do something more permanent for them because right now, as we are rehearsing every for the entire day, we can’t spend as much time as we’d like outside with our birds… and these 10×10 tents we have set up are NOT intended to leave your bird in unattended.

Camelot Macaw

However, by working together with our circus manager team and ourselves… we found a solution!

Below is a picture of me moving our birds’ foraging trees to their new more permanent set up… they haven’t been in it yet, it’s obviously still “under construction” from the mess but it’s a work in progress thus far! The birds’ set up in this photo are between the elephants (to the left) and horses (to the right) this allows all animals to get used to one another in a comfortable environment of having one another (same species) around and be in their “home” turf that they know but still being able to see the other animals around. It’s essential right now for all the animals in the show to get used to one another being around – the sound, the look of the other animals, etc. so they are aren’t spooked by one another during their routines in the show and backstage.

This will be our bird’s “semi” permanent aviary for being able to be outside a majority of the day. They will kept closest to the arena we perform at, where the horses, elephants and lions are close to as well for their own safety (more eyes on the animals, and close to a safe place for them)

Below is a picture of our Camelot Macaw Comet and behind him is where the horses and dogs are. At the time the photo was taken, they weren’t outside yet.

Camelot Macaw

We assume we will be spending more time at the arena than in our RV so rather than having them by our RV, we preferred by the building itself.

This new aviary set up’s purpose is to:

• Travel
• Set up sturdy
• Be a permanent aviary for the birds to be able to be kept in and not have to be watched
• Get the birds the sunlight they need to keep up healthy plumage
• A place for the birds to play, forage and keep busy socializing during the day as well as see people as often as possible
• A great environment for all the circus animals to get used to the birds being around (noise level, flying, etc) for all the animals to be able to see one another from the safety of their own enclosures

Blue throated macaw, Camelot macaws, Military macaw

This set up does all that for what we need – obviously, not many people are in our situation and because the circus already travels with these panels, they were more than willing to travel with a few more for the sake of our birds’ health.

I can’t even express how accommodating this is! We are very excited that we can now keep our birds outside again when weather and location permits.

We also still plan on keeping our 10×10 tents up as an easy way to continue to spend time with the birds as well. The tent keeps the bugs out, which is always a nice thing!

These aviaries need a lot of work still, making sure every part of them is secure so our birds can’t get out of them and making sure they lock safely so that not just any person can get in. We also are looking forward to getting the birds lots of hanging toys that will encourage them to really fly around the new stainless steel aviaries and get the most out of their playtime out there. Our hopes are to be able to let the birds stay in them until right before show time, and then go back to bed out there too.

Camelot Macaws, Blue Throated Macaw

In the picture above, you can actually see the three elephants in the Iluscination show behind the macaws.

Other than those adjustments to it before adding the birds in, we also have to find a way to get the birds some shade on one half of the aviary so they can get out of the natural elements should they want to. So there’s still a lot of work to be done, and they won’t be ready while we’re here in Tampa but at least they will be “down the road”!

For the sake of pictures and hanging out with the birds in the real outdoors, we put them in it yesterday and hung out for hours. We stayed with them the whole time since the changes I’ve talked about haven’t had the time to be implemented yet but I wanted the birds to see what they get to look forwards to none the less.