 He's so annoying, he knows I can't like deal with water. I was inside and Merlin was like, time for shower, time for shower, time for shower. Hello Snippers, flighters and hatchlings. My name is Marlene McCohen. Welcome to my channel. I have a ton of birds and I love sharing my life with all of these parrots with you. Oh. He goes to be a part of this year. Did you just not kick? This is blue. Blue wants to be in the video. Today we are going to do something really fun. For those of you who love cage setups and aviary setups, we are gonna set up this aviary today. If you can get a glimpse behind me, it doesn't look so good. It's kind of been a long time. You know, we're approaching summer, birds are about to go out again. So we gotta get this whole thing cleaned up and ready. As we go through this video, I'm gonna give you guys some tips, tricks, hacks and safety measures to be aware of. You didn't do anything. And I'd like to introduce you to the most annoying person in the world. Okay, here he is. He's so, so annoying. So you want me to do it? Yeah, well, just okay. So George is here. We're gonna get started. He's eager to get started because he's late as usual. So let's get started, George. First, I think we're gonna have to pull everything. I just told you that. First we're gonna remove everything from the aviary and we're gonna give it a really good start. So that's the first step. You mean I? I, yeah, yeah, I mean you. We'll get to it, buddy. George has this little rake that he's gonna start raking all the bottom. This is basically accumulation of, you know, the years ended. They haven't been in the aviary in a long time. Look at how much mess they can make very quickly. Good job, George. Good job so far. I like the work that I'm seeing here. Thanks. Can you please take the trash and put it in the box? I mean, take the box and put it in a dredge. George, I'm not like physically, bro, in dirt. Get some help, then. I'm out! It's underneath that I could remove all the time myself. You can't remove the plastic piece all by yourself. Yes, I could. Not with all this crap on it. George, but if I could do it myself often, then I could do it. This has been the argument for a very long time. The grass looks better. Some tips on how to get your aviary ready for summer. For those of you who don't have an aviary, you might learn some really cool things here that you might be able to apply to an outdoor cage or any other bird cage setup. There's a lot of beneficial reasons to having an outdoor setup for your bird. One of those being the vitamin D that is very essential for your bird and your bird's health and another good reason to have an outdoor aviary is literally actually to give yourself a break. If you live with your birds like they are family as do I, it's really nice to be able to get them out, give them some sun and let them enjoy life outside. And my bird's quite like it. Look, here's Vinny right now at the door. Hi Vinny. Vinny loves his aviary. So let's go over some quick tips. Depending on where you live, you may have more seasons in your state than other states do. I live here in sunny Los Angeles, so my birds can be outside a longer period of time during the year, whereas some of you have winter and your birds might not be outside during the winter. So if you've abandoned your aviary for a little bit, then when you come back and start getting it ready for summer, you definitely wanna give it a good, overall, fresh cleaning. Because let me tell you what mostly happens is you don't know how the weather is gonna go. You bring your birds in and you don't realize that's gonna be the last day that they're out for the year. So an entire ecosystem can breed and grow underneath the aviary. And that depends on what you put down and what you lay down. But in general, when it's time to put those birds out again, you want to start fresh. Now we do that by pressure washing the entire cage. And then we will even put like a minty natural soap on the ground and just kind of pressure wash that as well. We prefer to use natural ingredients. You guys saw the beginning of this video, what a disaster it was. It's a lot of hard work for me to do this. Can you open the door, please? You know, because I gotta like be here to open the door. Oh God. Okay, you do that one. No, George, I have long nails, please. Keep going. I'm gonna get black for this. They're gonna be like, George does everything! In all seriousness, so the birds haven't been in the aviary in all of winter. Some of the things that make the aviary dirty, one is misters. Now, a misting system is pretty important if you live in a hot area, if you plants have your birds outside during the heat. You definitely don't want them to get overheated. You want to know that you have that backup system of misters, which we do. There's also some safety precautions you want to take when you do have misters. Next tip, you might want to reevaluate what direction they're going in. You might want to check the nozzles. You want to make sure they're fresh. You want to make sure that they're not rusty in any way, that they might be spitting out dirty water, things like that, that's really important. So these are the nozzles and really cheap misters. These kind of things can break apart and it would be dangerous if they flew at your bird. So just make sure you check all of those every summer and that they're on secure and that none of them are broken because otherwise they will spurt out a very strong dangerous stream. So that's important as well. Along with your misters, you might also want to reevaluate any kind of heating situation. We have these heat lamps that we have set up sometimes just in case it gets to a certain temperature. I don't leave my birds outside, so generally I'm completely aware and can bring them in, but for those of you that maybe have them outside longer or the temperatures drop too fast, you want to make sure that your light bulbs are in there correctly and they're side heaters. You just want to make sure that all of that is ready and safe. They're special purchase. We actually have some heated purges. We personally don't use them, but if it's something that you prefer, then absolutely just check on them. Make sure everything is hooked up and ready to go. George, what are you doing? Power washing. But I'm here right now. Okay, they're moving out of the way. Turn on the video. I just want to say a few important things. This is the usual with us. I'm trying to make a video like and make points and George is making noise in the background. Do you want to put it over there in the corner? Yeah, can we get it all the way to the corner, George? Oh, look at the brook, bro. Do you know what that is? That's a scrub jay. Is that meat? Yes, his name is Rufus. Rufus is buying and waiting. Yeah, Rufus will be back pretty soon. Here's why Rufus is here because every day at the end of the night, all of their bird food that they have not eaten or you know. She puts in a bag and then I take it out. You give yourself so much credit. I sometimes take it out. And I put it out for the birds outside to enjoy. And this next piece of info is kind of more like a hack for you and for easy cleaning. Every night after I bring the birds inside, I also bring their bowls inside and I put them in the dishwasher and wash them. What makes life a lot easier is if I have a double setup of all bowls because then I'll always have a backup of something that's immediately clean. So that's just another part of the setup that's kind of cool to be prepared for. Here's another tip before you even set up your aviary. As far as the bowls and the way you feed your birds, I think this is really important. It's just something that struck me as possibly very dangerous for birds. And I wanted to have you guys prepared as well. So there's lots of different bowls that you could put in an aviary. These look really simple and easy and they are because you can just from within cook it on like this. But if you guys have larger birds like cockatoos, you know birds have an ability to move things and dump them. And this is quite heavy, so it could be hard for a bird to do, although not impossible. And when you have multiple birds, you want to avoid all accidents before they happen because Vinny might go lock cockatoo, he likes to perch low and play down there with some boxes and things that I give him to play with. If another bird was to knock this over and it would fall on him, he could get a concussion and die. I prefer these bowls for inside an aviary and any spot where there's gonna be multiple birds. They basically go inside like this and then the mechanism goes like this. This is two pieces. I have backups, I have black ones and I have this color, but it doesn't matter, you can get any color and they switch like this. And they're also lighter. So it's really hard for a bird to twist it, pull it and like it's almost impossible. So safety-wise I prefer bowls like this. There's other styles. You can choose whichever style you like. This is just something that I've found available and easy to make. That is something to be aware of. Just kind of having some foresight is very important with birds. They love to throw things. So when you have multiple birds in one spot, you have got to take extra precautions. George, it's gonna be wet inside the house. I brought my tea out. Who got the stuff out of you? Can I just have my tea first? This may go without saying, but just make sure that aviary is safe for the birds from animals outside. There's many different companies that have aviaries. The specific aviary is by wings. And what I like about it is that no animals can really get through this. You know, in backyards, there's a lot of cats, raccoons and things like that. Just regular outside cages with larger bars. They're not as safe for your bird. So an aviary is really a good alternative and also it gives your bird a lot of space to fly around. That's the whole point, to get them to spread their wings and have a lot more fun. Another thing that we need to talk about is shade. When you set up your aviary, do you have a spot that is shaded? Generally, the aviary will come with something on top to protect your bird from shade, but a lot of you may be building these yourself and you wanna make sure that you have a proper setup. Even with this top on the cage and this awning that we have, sometimes I still have to add like a blanket in the corner just to add some extra shade for the bird. So just make sure you have some of those materials on hand and that you recognize the placement where the sun lands and things like that. Deal with water. I was inside and Merlin was like, time for shower, time for shower, time for shower. My hands are vibrating. I don't really like the feeling of that. You know. Is it fun? Yeah, it's satisfying in a way. Now, when you are getting your aviary ready for the summer and time for the birds to come in, it's really important that you start afresh with toys, perches and things like that. Definitely investigate what you have and what needs to be changed. This is extremely old. It's withered during the weather. Definitely not a safe item to have here for the birds. Those of you who know a lot about things like this, if your bird chews them, you wanna make sure that you don't put things in the cage that your bird chews in a way that they swallow it due to cloth impactions. So that's something we're definitely gonna be pulling out. Another thing you wanna do is look for rusty toys, hooks, bells, chains. I recommend removing all of the toys, but that's one specific thing that you definitely wanna target and remove from your aviary. The same goes for your indoor cages as well. Another tip, even though you know your birds, you've set up the aviary last year, I would urge you guys to reevaluate where all of your perches are. Sometimes you get a new bird, sometimes you get to know your bird better, sometimes you've had them in there for a while and you're like, ah, this isn't really working. So I like to pull out all of the perches. Obviously, pressure wash them as well. It's always a good idea to change things around. Not only because the birds get bored, it's fun for them to come in and see something new and have new experiences. You may have new birds that you wanna make sure that you cater to them. The perches might be a different size than they usually need, so you wanna evaluate that. You may also have gotten to know your bird better since because that happens. It's not like it takes five weeks and you know everything about your bird. Sometimes you know a lot more. For example, I realized that Vinny, my Gala cockatoo, he likes to perch low. So you might wanna include some low perches as well as some high perches, some thick perches as well as, you know, thin perches. A lot of toy companies also come out with new perches and new exciting things every year that you might want to add and rearrange. He's still talking to the camera. I'm gonna kill you. Now the first thing you guys need to know before you even set up your aviary is to grab another person to help you. And I don't mean because of the labor. I mean because it's almost physically impossible to put a perch in an aviary yourself because imagine someone's gotta be in there twisting one side and you've gotta be here twisting the other. Now I kind of have perfected a way to do it myself which involves a broom standing up and holding a bowl or a perch and then me going in and out. But that is just such a waste of time and that was me in a desperate situation. So before you even get started and discover that you're gonna need another person just get that other extra hand. The last tip is I would advise you to before you set up your aviary have a really good execution plan for cleaning. As you saw what we had to do today with all of the pressure washing is something that's essential but it is a lot of work. I had suggested and I still stand by having some plastic that I could pick up and throw away. George is insistent on the grass. He likes the way it looks. He feels like the birds feel good in it. We're actually going to be looking into a new option and that is gonna be building a base for the aviary. It's gonna be easier to pressure wash under the cage. We're gonna make it extremely stable as well and we're gonna create a way that from under the grass that he likes to lay down there is another protectant layer so that the pellets, seeds and fruits don't go through. Hopefully eliminating a major part of the ecosystem that can be created under the cage. Mila. Yes? Get a broom and start doing something. So you're gonna get your shoe dirty. That's what I'm saying George. And it's not fair because you're making me look like. Thank you guys so much for watching. I hope you loved this cage setup. George and I are going to go to Home Depot now and make this new thing for you, this new base. So stay tuned for part two. Don't forget to subscribe and let me know what your favorite part of this video is. But if you guys want a more organized version of this to get directly to your points and answer your questions I have a guide below that you guys can check all of that out.