The Great Escape – Case Closed

I had about 5 incidents where I would be sitting around and hearing weird sounds coming from my bird’s cage area which is out of sight. When I heard the sound of clanging and newspaper tearing, I was certain that something was wrong. I know that there is no way for her to reach the newspapers in her cage because the grate separates her area from the poop pan. However, on top of the cage is a perch and poop pan under that. So by hearing newspaper shredding, I knew she was on top of her cage. She had to have climbed out on her own because I never leave her up there unattended.

I went over to investigate and sure enough she was on top of the cage. The cage door was closed and latched by two independent latching mechanisms so no sign of break out on the main cage door. Both food access doors were closed. But wait a minute, the mastermind criminal had left a clue! The latch on one of the food bin doors was not in the closed position. A little green feather provided further evidence and helped to link the perpetrator.

Evidence left behind at the scene of the crime by the perpetrator

The first time this happened, I wondered how I could have forgotten to close the food doors properly. By the second or third time, I swore that I would be careful to always double checking locking those food doors. By the 5th time it happened, I knew that my parrot was an escape artist.

This is what I think happened:

Opening the food door

The Escape

Making a break for it

Victory Dance

My first instinct was to blame the cage. Blaming the bird, I knew, would be pointless because there is absolutely nothing I can do to stop her from being mischievous. Furthermore, she has all day to herself in the cage to contemplate her escape. And it’s not that she doesn’t like to be in her cage or that there is anything all the interesting on top of the cage, but she just likes to cause trouble. My biggest worry is that she could try to get out some time that I am not home (particularly if I go away a few days) and that she could not get back in and be deprived access to food and water. So I blamed the cage design and decided to look at other cage alternatives and see if they could provide me with either an idea to fix the cage or replace it all together. I found some cages to have a piece of sheet metal block the bars to the latch so that the bird could not reach it, however it did not block access from the other side (the side I suspect she pushed the latch open on). Other cages had gravity assisted flaps that fall locked when the door is closed. Kili’s cage has that as a backup for the main latch on the front door (this is great because there’s no way she can work both latches at once). The woman at the store told me that those aren’t very good and that birds figure out how to swing those latches open easily. I could not find a suitable cage alteration to prevent this from occurring again. I am irritated that the cage manufacturers (even for the good cages) would not have enough sense to make a bird proof door. They did realize the need to make two latches for the front door, leaving escape options to the food doors. If the food doors had an identical mechanism to the front door, all problems would be solved, but they don’t,

So I set off to make my own amends. I considered finding a strap, luggage lock, or other device to add to prevent the door from being opened if the latch were undone. I didn’t want to make it so difficult that I would have to waste a lot of time working it to get it open every time I had to change food. One day I was looking at the metal pieces we use to hand bird toys and thought bingo! It would have to be like that but on a quick spring latch rather than a rotating bolt fixture. So I went to a hardware store and looked for small carabine that I could use. They weren’t small enough in hardware so I looked in key chains. I picked a couple up but they turned out to be too big because the door could open a few inches before they hit the carabine to stop. This could leave a gap of several inches and probably pose a greater danger to the bird than getting out alltogether. Instead I got a spring loaded key chain gadget which worked out perfectly! It is quick to open, simple press down on the lever and it releases. But yet on the bird side, there is nothing it can do to open it. It’s made of metal so the bird cannot chew it up or destroy it (I avoided the plastic ones). Now, opening the food doors is a two step process, however I can have the piece of mind to know that the bird won’t me in danger of getting out. Originally I worried about having to replace the cage alltogether because of the security breach, and instead I found a great solution for $3. While her chances of getting out with the latch were already fairly small, undoing two separate devices is close to impossible, especially because the key chain is spring loaded and would spring back shut upon release. Case closed.

The solution

The culprit locked away behind bars with no chance of escape!

Warning: Observe how your bird is acting around the lock as you do not want your bird too interactive with it. This lock may or may not work for your bird and you may look to other types of locks that your bird will leave alone rather than show interest in. Kili did not show any interest in playing with this lock, but other birds may react differently.