Aviculture involves the keeping and breeding of bird – a culture the club promotes. 

Club member Rod Young, at a recent meeting, gave an interesting talk and slide-show on his collection of birds. 

Rod has been breeding birds for 40 years and has a large variety of parrots. 

Along with his sons Sean and Dale they have and maintain 130 aviaries.

His setup is amazing and he maintains this with self-feeders and watering. 

Water is piped to one end of a bank of aviaries and with the flick of a lever fills each water bowl simultaneously. 

He also has soft lighting in a majority of aviaries which serves two purposes – if birds are spooked during the night, which happens a lot, they are able to see around their area which cuts down on bird losses and the lights also serves as a source of warmth on cold nights.

He explained the reasons for using a good aviary design and that is firstly decided on what type of bird you wish to keep and then buy the good wire to suit. 

Also you need to consider if you want an open type or box type. 

Vermin is another consideration as an aviary is a perfect place for rats and mice to set up a home as they have food, water and a warm place to live in. 

Vermin love to harass birds during the night and can cause losses in your birds. 

Rod showed the audience an interesting trap he made and is harmless to birds and that is a covered container like an ice-cream container or a bucket with a lid, a hole cut out of the side and bait kept in the container – the vermin can then access the baits without harm to the birds. 

A variety of fresh fruit and vegetables is fed each day and Rod also talked on mixing sprouted seeds and a grit mix. 

The talk was very well received by the members.

If you are interested in coming along we meet on the second Tuesday of each month at the PCYC and please call club president Ray Faulds on 4423 4475 for more information.