hi
i need a bit of advise as its becoming obvious i have just built an aviary which houses at present zebra finches and cannaries plus three quails the problem i have is the english weather i have covered the external flight with easibed wood shaving to hide the concrete slabs. it looks amazing and the birds love it but now the rain has come i am getting water ingress from the sides and its getting very damp around the edges ...i now would like to change this for maybe pea size gravel would this be ok for the birds and especially the quail ...thanks for just reading this lot phew!!!

Why cover the concrete paving? As long as your birds have the shaving on the inner part that they can re-treat to they will be fine.

If the shavings get wet and damp you should remove them a.s.a.p. as they could go moudly very quickly and this would be fatal for your birds. I use a plastic dish in the flight area of my avairy where my quails can enjoy a dust bath and scratch around in. It's great as I can keep it away from areas that it could get wet or damp. On the dry sunny days i put straw in my flight area as the quails love to bury themselveds in it

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I use sand on the floor of our aviary.

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i think my idea of wood shavings was seriously flawed and so flipping messy it just looked really good when it was down ..all brand new and clean but i will revert back to the slabs ...like the idea about the straw though

Hi, my partner has recently purchased a hexagonal aviary and stocked it with 8 zebra finches.
However, it does not have a floor at present and was wondering how best to make one so as to anchor the aviary to the ground to stop the wind from toppling it and also to make a floor that is easy to keep clean.
I am not sure of the make of the aviary so i am not sure if there are any factory floors??

Kind regards

Use sand....the added bonus for the birds is they eat some sand to help the stomach process the food