Here's what I've been doing for the last month.

I built a breeding cage for Buster and Shodu so they could get out of the bird room and away from the nest raiders. Now they're out in the hallway with the other breeders. Not an ideal place maybe, but they're still close to the bird room and have visual contact with the rest of the flock.


The bird room gets hot in the summer so I made some improvements that will increase the air flow while keeping the birds safe.

A screen door that will keep the nest raiders (Squeebis and Teela I'm looking at you) and future fledglings inside the room without putting anyone in a cage or shutting the solid door:


Window screen protectors so I can open the windows without letting those sharp little beaks have access to the ordinary window screens. The blinds are usually down, I just opened them up for the picture:


My greatest creation: a cage for the ceiling fan that screens it off from the birds, so it's safe to run the fan while the birds are out of the cage.


For anyone who's interested, there's more pictures and info at http://home.comcast.net/~ch_zonie/crafts-carpentry.html

I really like the fan cage! So that's what Arizona looks like....where r u in Arizona? In illinois, there's a lot more vegetation and over all green.

Nice work! Can I borrow your skills for a weekend?

wow! thats amazing!

i wondered how you got the cage up on the ceiling. I love that website you made on your projects. i want to re-make my aviary since the wood on the floor has a crack going from one side to the other. I will learn how you built yours.

Arizona looks so dry! i felt thirsty just looking at the pictures. off to get a drink…

That's outstanding. I can't imagine what you would do with the manzanita supply we have near us.

Arizona does look dry. Even in our California drought, it's still greener.

That fan cage is simply genius.
About the breeding cage, what material you used for the bottom of the tray? I saw some 24x24" hard plastic trays I was thinking to use, but they are not exactly cheap!

I love the view from your window... so exotic! (at least for british standards).

That's what Tucson looks like in May. In June it gets even browner. Then the monsoon rains come in July-August and it turns green. By desert standards anyway, our greenest time doesn't hold a candle to places that get real rainfall. We had a better view before the neighbor's hedge plants started dying. Now we get to look at their ugly driveway. I'm trying to get some palo verde trees to grow there and screen it off again but the %#&@ rabbits keep killing the saplings. They're not even edible but apparently the dumb bunnies don't know it and have to wreck the baby trees to figure it out.

The big bushy looking plant that you see right through the screen is a jumping cholla. I could make some nice perches from the branches if I could figure out how to get the cactus flesh off of the wood.

For the tray in the bottom of the cage, I made a rectangular frame out of wood, and the bottom of the tray is hardware cloth not a solid surface. At the moment there's only newspaper in it to catch the mess, but Buster and Shodu don't like to poop in the breeding cage and even prefer to eat in the bird room - I think they're saving the food supplies in the cage for when the babies hatch. So there's not too much debris falling in the bottom that could spill out. I'm planning to cover the tray with plastic cut from an old shower curtain so it'll be easy to wash and will hold the debris better. Getting the ceiling fan covered was a higher priority, since the super hot weather will be on us soon.

Carolyn, are you part spider monkey? How on earth did you get that frame on the ceiling?

Installing the ceiling fan cage was a lot harder than building it lol. I finally figured out that eyelet hooks and rope could be used to lift it up. I went around pulling up each corner about a foot at a time.

Wow! that's a bunch of big accomplishments. I'm going to show my brother the photo of how you put the cage over the ceiling fan. So good you thought to take it so you'd have it to show us. Thanks.