On my recent visit to WA for the federation show we went on an aviary tour of some of the WAZFS members. On this tour we went to Ken Glasson's house where we saw his two banks of suspended cages. Kens cages are aproximately 750 high by 750 deep by 425 wide. One set of the cages had a removable divider so that they could be opened up and used as flight cages. Ken said he found the cages very good and the birds were breeding well in them.

Upon arrival home on the Tuesday, I (Kerry really) commenced to modify some of my existing full to the floor cages into suspendeds. The first cage I modified was approx 1800 high by 2 metres long and 830 deep. This cage was used for one pair of birds. The decision was whether to make 5 cages by 400 wide or 4 cages 500 wide. So erring on the side of caution I decided on 4 cages approx 500 wide by 600 high this fitted the existing framework.

The mistake I made with these cages was using a blank grey plastic sheeting as a divider and it made the back of these cages quite dark. I glued a board at the back of the cages and drilled holes to place perches in to go from front to back. I was given the advice of having a solid flat surface on the floor for the birds to land on so I used cardboard eggs boxes (which I have plenty of and cut them about 200 wide and 350 long and placed them on the floor and the seed dish on this. This seemed to work fine.

I went and bought a fish tank net or catching the birds and with a bit of practice bird catching wasn't too nuch of a problem. The follong weekend I modified another section where this time the original cage was 1200 square. Again I made them 600 high and simply cut them in half, so they were 1200 deep by 600 wide. Yes you tell me how did I catch the birds, well I did get away using a stick as well as the net, was very frustrating.

I finally modified my net 14/12/02 by putting an extra 15 inches on the handle and didn't that work well. You wonder why you do some thing three months later than they should be done.

This time I used the sandstone coloured 70% shadecloth as the divider over wire so I could placethe nests on the side as well as the front. This shade cloth was perfect for light. The birds went straight to nest and with in 10 days I had 7 pairs with eggs. Within 3 weeks of being in WA I had my first young in the nest.

In November I went to Lake Macquarie for a young bird show and Paul Clarke gave me a guided tour of his aviary and suspended cages. Paul's cages are all wire including the partitions and are 300 wide by approx 800 x 800. The birds are nesting very well in these cages as well and Paul was very happy with the results and from what I understand this is where Ken got his inspiration.

I always felt that you could easily and practically double deck these type of cages simply to fit more pairs into the available space. I placed a second row below the first cages I made this time I only made them 550 hight. I placed a sheet of corregated fibreglass between the two layers and it was perfect width to prevent seed and water going through to the second layer as well as letting the light through. So I now had 12 pairs where I originally had three and easy to maintain.

The exact dimension of the suspended cage depends on the size of the space available to the individual. Suspended cages can be adapted and modified to suit any pre-existing situation and seem very practically suited to bird breeding.

Peter Trow