My New Java Finch Breeding Room From Start To Finish
I have now decided to try cage breeding my Java's as this will enable me to have greater control with pairing the birds.
I have finished the first 16 cages out of 24. In spring 2003 I will build the remaining 8 cages, to accommodate any off spring
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The garden shed here on the left is just an ordinary apex roof shed with one opening door at one end, this shed has no opening windows at all. The dimensions of the shed are as follows: eight foot wide and ten foot long. The small aviary you can see is something I added earlier in the year
 
The Beginning

Where do I begin? I am going to give this old garden shed a make over!
and turn it into a breeding room for my Java finches.
I Just need to find a new home for all my junk
This is the start, I cleared out the shed completely so I could cover the floor with hard board
so I can lay a water proof covering, as you will see later.
After the hard board is laid, I started in the far corner paneling the walls of the shed with 12mm plywood, I paneled just enough to start constructing my cages and paneled the rest of the shed later, as you will see from the photos.
The brown you can see on the wood is the outside wood preservative seeping thorough.
This is me hard at work, with the good old ratchet screw driver.
In this photo you can see the side of the shed has been paneled out and
including a section of the back, here I am going to install a bank of 16 cages,
each cage will be 28" long 16" deep and 17" high
I have not insulated behind the plywood I thought with it being
12mm thick plus the cavity between the plywood and shed wall,
plus the thickness of the shed wall this would be sufficient
What I have done here is firstly paint the plywood white with vinyl silk emulsion,
then I glued and screwed 1" X 1/2" battens to the walls, this is where the cage bases will go.
For the roof of the shed I have used polystyrene sheets 1" thick. These sheets where bought from a builders yard, it's what they put in the cavity wall when brick laying, each sheet is 18" by 4 foot long, a good size to handle and trim to fit the roof, plus I saved on the painting, not only that, it will pay in the winter when the back ground heat goes on by insulating the roof.
Two other thing as well, it muffles the sound of the heavy rain on the shed roof & reflects the light as well.
Well now you can see the carcass of the bank of cages . The two lengths of wood are only there to support the shelves until I have put the sliding partitions in.
You can just see the cage dividers, these have been glued in place, with a 1" slot cut out to take a strip of wood which the cage fronts will fix to. If you look at the top shelve, you can see a yellowish strip, this is a 1/2"x 1/2" strip just set back from the edge, so the cage fronts don't fall back into the cage itself.

Now they are looking more and more like cages.
Here you can see the 1" strip of wood I was talking about above for the cage fronts, allso you can see the white plastic channels I use for the partitions to run along. If you go and see my build a cage page! you can see more on there about how I do my cages.| Link |
If you would like to see a close-up of how I did the runners and 1" strip Click Here for a lager photo.
O.K. now I have painted all the cages and the partitions, also I finished panelling the rest of the shed. I punched a hole at the back of the shed to fix an electric extraction fan in for ventilation, also I have fitted the lighting (strip lights) Just need the cage fronts now.

As soon as I knew what size cage fronts I needed I ordered them off George (left).
George makes custom punch bar cage fronts to fit any project. I was very lucky with my cage fronts, George himself personally hand delivered them to me (140 mile round trip).
My fronts are 281/4" long and 15" high also I had breeding doors put in each right hand corner so I can put my breeding boxes there. The main door is 5"x 5". Each cage front has four fixing pins at the bottom and none at the top, this is what I wanted.
After a few e-mails between me and George I got the fronts to fit my requirements and not only did they fit perfectly, the where very well made.
Nearly finished, all the cage fronts are fitted. The water proof floor covering is down and sealed all around, Why! water proof you might ask, it's for when the Java's are taking a bath, the water goes everywhere.
It's also good when it's time to brush those seed husks
Well here it is finely finished and the birds are in their new home.
I have filled the gap between the top of the cages and the roof,
to stop any escaped birds getting up there,
also it stops the dust from settling up there, it's made with UPVC plastic.
Also you can see on the right an internal wire door to stop any birds from escaping, I can also leave the shed door open in the summer and the cats can not get in the room.
Here are two must's for a bird room.
The hospital cage is set up and ready to go if needed. Above the hospital you can see the time switch for the main lighting, the birds get to know when the time is up as the clock is set for the same time to go off everyday.
I also use a red night light, so the birds don't get night fright, this light comes on ten minuets before the main lights go out, and stays on until day break, it's only 15watt's and let's the birds settle down at night.
If you would Like to build one of my hospital
cages Click here for more information
Another Project By www.javafinch.co.uk 2002