I mentioned this on the other Mews post but friend of mine has a gazebo styled Mew that is inexpensive $250 very roomy and easy to put up. I got a few pictures -Jim bondmj007@aol.com
LOL--tried that told me they were too large. I took pictures of my friend Mew from a couple angles and got one inside with his Redtail in residence.Only got the one inside.Cheap nice looking Mews really roomy.We are going to Lowes tomorrow and pick up some of the materials and get started before my son goes back to school. The Star plates for the top were a little hard to find but picked them up at a Hardware store for under $6 ea.(building 2 Mews).--Jim
That was a good idea went to Hunt101.com thats where I upload most of my pictures but they have temporarily suspended uploads for hardware upgrade. However anyone interested got some pictures of my Blue dogs and a fairly nice buck there just type j007 in the search and it will take you to them--Jim
I dont kow if this has been said yet but i wanted to get this out as fast as possible!
DO NOT USE CEDAR SHAVINGS!
the reason for that is cedar "fumes" can become poisonous at moderate/high levels especially when inside a weathering area and depending on ventilation. If i was you and you had your mind set on using shavings i would go with pine. Smells nice, isnt poisonous, and is way cheaper than cedar anywa, plus you wont be putting your prized possesion in harms way.
Everyone here suggests using pea gravel (if we're all on the same page here and talking about flooring). It's what I'm planning using after a put a door in my mew (Most likely going to happen Thursday... I paint it tomorrow )
Try to make it as level as possible. If you can dig into the slope thats an idea or you could build up one end of the mew to square everything up. Holly crap I just finished my flooring on my mew today, Im exosted But I have another full days worth of work tommarow I just want to get it finished. It will be worth it in the end.
"You're a smart kid Johny, you really are, but as long as I'm around you'll only be second best." The Godfather
Try using some fill dirt if you don't feel like digging into the slope. I have the same problem with where I am building my weathering area. We need to use fill dirt there because my mew is on level ground.
M7y mew is on a slope and I left it that way to allow for drainage. It's simply taller on one end than the other.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
If you go to FB main site and look at the pics you can see my mew is the works. I used 4x4 treated posts and drove them into the ground then formed a perimiter with treated 2x8. You just run the base 2x8's with the grade. I have a friend who has a mew in his back yard on a real strong slope. and he built a retaining wall to allow his to use a regular base for the mew.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
I just passed my falconry exam in august. I found a sponsor 2 months before that and he is an excellent falconer been doing it for about 35 years. Anyway we have starting building my mew/weathering and its big but he has experience so I am building it anyway. Its 10x10 mew and 10x10 weathering so its 10x20 all together. But it is the perfect mew for any bird except an eagle of course. But the material I had to put into it was not to expensive except the plywood which was the good stuff grooved out exterior kind. The weathering has 1x2x6 wire and its expensive but he told me that the other kind he had before that some coyotes chewed through the wire and got his red-tail. And I built the mew on a slope and it is level with the weathering so it turned out to be in a great location. If you want a mew/weathering area that will last for a lifetime then I suggest this. But its up to the apprentice and the sponsor. So I can give you diagrams and supplies to buy for it, it is much better than the break down one in the book Red-tailed hawk.