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Opinions needed on CustomCages Majestic & Hybrid Cages

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Opinions needed on CustomCages Majestic & Hybrid Cages

Postby karenm0 » Fri Aug 13, 2021 3:43 pm

Hi all,
We are moving into a new home and have an opportunity to get a new cage for our two parrots: Sam (a 15 year old African Grey), and Munya (an 18 year old Blue-Front Amazon). They currently share a large King's corner cage. We'd like them to continue to share an enclosure, but we are intent on being able to roll the new cage out the door onto the deck so they can hang with us outside on nice days (this means that we'd have to limit the cage depth of about 30"). We'd like the cage to be about 6 ft. wide and it can be door height (as tall as 7 ft. (*including wheels, etc)).

Our options seem limited to getting a Custom Cage (http://www.customcages.com) -- either the Hybrid line or the Majestic line. (Or, my husband says, to design and build one ourselves - which I suppose we COULD do, but I'd rather not for a variety of reasons.) The Custom Cages look like well-built, well-designed enclosures, but we have some questions related to CLEANING (! -- What else? LOL). The Hybrid line could clearly be taken onto the deck and hosed off -- but the frame is available only in black, and the rest of our house is white (walls and trim). My husband has a strong preference for a white frame. The Majestic line would be the same frame but with a furniture-type surround painted white. However, the sales rep says that it wouldn't be appropriate to hose it out.

MY QUESTION IS -- how much of a pain is it to clean a Majestic cage from Custom Cages? Our current cage can be a bear....not "difficult" per se, but time consuming. Also, am I the only one that wouldn't much mind hosing and then drying-off my wooden furniture? I don't think it would happen a ton, but we definitely wish our King's cage fit through the door so we could give it a good wash on the deck. We think it would be nice to have that option with the new cage. Does anyone out there have a Majestic-line cage from Custom Cages? What do you think would happen if it got a shower now and then?

ALSO -- Does anyone have any experience with a "debris and aggregate stopper" - https://www.customcages.com/debris-and- ... opper.html - Do they really work?
ALL comments and ideas welcome!

Thanks!
Karen
karenm0
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: African Grey
Flight: Yes

Re: Opinions needed on CustomCages Majestic & Hybrid Cages

Postby Pajarita » Sat Aug 14, 2021 10:13 am

Well, I had a custom-made cage and, personally, I would never get another one. They are more expensive than the commercial ones and never done well. For one thing, I do not like cages with plexiglass (I don't like to see animals as if they were an exhibit and the plexiglass will be ALWAYS dirty!). I also don't like cages with wood and, if you wash it -even if it is a few times a year- the wood will warp unless you use treated wood which you can't do with birds because it's toxic.

But, I don't know why you think that it needs to be a custom cage to go through the door (I assume that is the reason for the 30 in max even though doors come wider than that). There are lots of nice, big cages that can fit through a door (all of the indoor ones actually, manufacturers are not stupid). They might not be as tall or as wide as you want them but, in reality, they do not need to be because amazons are VERY sedentary birds (there is a good reason why they are called perch potatoes) and grays only want to be on their human's shoulders and do not move much inside their cages (at least, that's what I think, I am not 100% because my gray(s) were never caged). The truth of the matter is that when a bird is out as much as it's supposed to be, they don't really need a very big cage because they mainly use it for eating and sleeping. And I am with your husband on the white color! I only have one dark cage (it's forest green), it's the one that the male/female pair of YNA use and I use it mostly because it's real big but all my other cages are light colored - black cages are so oppressive, right?

As to cleaning... well, all cages need to cleaned every day but, with practice, it becomes easy and fast. I scrape the perches, toys and bars with the edge of knife and then wipe them with the scrubby side of a sponge, put new clean paper on the bottom and replace the water and food bowls (I have two and even three sets of everything so I can put the dirty ones in the dishwasher every day and have clean replacements ready) and voila! done for the day. Once a week, instead of using the knife, I spray everything with warm water and soap, let it soak for a couple of minutes and then use a stainless steel 'sponge' to scrub them - a wet towel 'rinses' the cages. I also fill up a basin in the kitchen sink with warm water and dish soap and soak the perches and toys but, if the perches are too dirty or have no bark left on them (I do not use commercial perches -dowels- but natural tree branches)I throw them out and put new ones - unless they are boodas which I just replace with new ones. About three or four times a year, my husband takes them outside and power washes them so, yes, taking them outside to wash them thoroughly is perfectly doable.
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes

Re: Opinions needed on CustomCages Majestic & Hybrid Cages

Postby karenm0 » Sat Aug 14, 2021 11:57 am

Thank you, Pajarita!
I hadn't heard that the plexiglass looks/gets dirty all the time - we had been thinking that it would help contain the mess! Our theory wrt plexiglass/acrylic/glass is it would be nice for our fids to have an unobstructed view of the action at times when they might not want to actually be out with us (if we have friends over, for example) and that it would seem a little more furniture-like in the new house (where every space has multiple functions). And I hate to see them "behind bars". It feels sad.

We clean daily and after two decades have figured out that *that* won't change - but we want to make sure that the cage we end up with is designed with easy-cleaning in mind. And maybe someone will have a brilliant idea that changes everything and prevents our floors from becoming a dog-buffet! And mobility is a factor both for cleaning and being able to have safe outside time.

You're right, the door width is a constraint that is causing some frustration. I feel strongly that the depth of the cage should accommodate their wing spans, and companies seem to jump from 24" to 36" depth with little in between. I found a 10-year-old post reviewing different cages that pointed me in the direction of some manufacturers (with good reputations) that I hadn't heard of before. One has a feeding system that looks great in terms of helping keep food in the cage (http://freedomcage.com/freedom-buffet/) -- interesting.

Thanks again for your feedback!
karenm0
Parakeet
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 5
Number of Birds Owned: 1
Types of Birds Owned: African Grey
Flight: Yes

Re: Opinions needed on CustomCages Majestic & Hybrid Cages

Postby Pajarita » Sun Aug 15, 2021 10:27 am

You know? It's funny because you think that bars are more depressing to birds than plexiglass but I think it's the opposite. I also hate cages - with a passion! I rescue dogs and have the sum total of one single crate in my house - it's the largest size they have and I only have it because sometimes one needs to keep a dog isolated from the others (as when they've had major surgery) without leaving the animal all by himself in a room - or when I need to bring in a sick feral cat to treat it or a mother cat with kittens - that sort of thing. The greatest majority of my birds live cage-free in a birdroom but I do have birds that live in cages in my living and dining room because they cannot be put in the birdroom (birds that can't fly or require a special diet and supplements for the rest of their life, etc). The reason why I think that thin white bars spaced out to the max gauge for the species is less oppressive than plexiglass is that plexiglass does not allow for interaction and it mutes noise - what I am trying to say is that, if I had to choose for myself, I would choose to be able to reach out through the bars, hear clearly and feel the breeze through the cage than be behind a solid wall even if it's transparent... it would feel more like a sensory-deprivation chamber than anything else. And it will be dirty ALL THE TIME. You will clean it in the morning and, in about two hours, it will be splattered with pieces of food all over or, at least, that was my experience and I did not even have parrots in but Brazilian cardinals which are nowhere as messy as parrots! And that's also the reason why the cage you posted the link to will not work to eliminate all splatters - parrots grab food in their feet and eat it separately from the bowl. And they will throw pieces of food all over because it's a natural, hard-wired behavior (part of their ecological niche, actually - there was a study that found that parrots not only disperse seed by throwing out pieces of their food but also feed up to 38 ground-dwelling species) and this is something that cannot be avoided. I have learned to live with finding little pieces of food stuck to my walls, my windows, my rugs, etc. as well as poop... it's part and parcel of keeping parrots. I just scrub them off and, if the paint wears off (which it does), I simply retouch the paint (I use non-toxic, zero VOS paint). According to my children, I have OCD because I am very 'particular' (they and my husband say I am a pain in the neck :D ) about cleanliness, neatness and EXACT routines :lol: And maybe I do have a small streak of it but surviving cancer and keeping parrots taught me not to sweat the little things and to keep a bit of a blind eye to a dab of dirt.

This cage (https://www.birdcagesnow.com/collection ... -bird-cage) is not as long as you wanted and it is wider (34') but my zons are in a cage that is more or less the same size and they have plenty of room (but they spend most of the daylight hours with the door to the cage open so they can go in and out as they please. And even though it is wider than you were looking, there are doors up to 36' so, even if the door to your back porch is narrower, you can always change it for a wider one - and it is white, which I like - it has a dome top, which I don't (I like flat topped cages because the birds like to spend time on top of their cages and the dome ones are uncomfortable for them) but you can always put a large branch tied with sisal rope to the cage to make it more comfortable for them to perch (that's what I do when I get a new bird that comes with a dome cage and I need to quarantine it in it - it's better for them to have their own familiar cage when they are rehomed than getting a new one on top of the new home, humans, etc).
Pajarita
Norwegian Blue
 
Gender: This parrot forum member is female
Posts: 18701
Location: NW Pa
Number of Birds Owned: 30
Types of Birds Owned: RoseBreasted too, CAG, DoubleYellowHead Amazon, BlueFront Amazon, YellowNape Amazon, Senegal, African Redbelly, Quaker, Sun Conure, Nanday, BlackCap Caique, WhiteBelly Caique, PeachFace lovebird, budgies,
Flight: Yes


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