The inside wall of the mews, or the inside of the wall? The walls in contact with the bird will be covered with coroplast, which will give a little if the bird hits the walls. I use 3/4'' x 2'' planks for the skeleton of the walls. I won't use any kind of wire.
Why would you glue the coroplast to the walls? That will make it a real pain in the a$$ to change, if it ever needs replacing. A few short screws down the edges work great, and are easy to remove later.
Well, I did plan everything in that mews to be removable, including the coroplast, but the guys who sold me the coroplast told me that screws would break the plastic and they convinced me to use glue instead... I might pay them a visit, at 3$ each glue tube no wonder why they prefered me to use glue instead of screws... It's so evident once you tell it I should have stick to my first idea!
Just use a washer with the screw, to spread out the area in contact with the coro. No way it will break. I build radio controlled airplanes from coro. It's very tough.
Short sheetrock screws work good. Put one every 16 inches or so, at the joints. And 3 or 4 down the middle, spread out evenly. They won't spit or break the coroplast. Washers aren't necessary, just make sure you don't drive them through the coroplast. Stop screwing when the head of the screw is flush with the coroplast.
I spent the weekend in there working on the walls, for the first time since January the mercury was at -15 celsius, different from the -30 we had since the beginning of the year!!
So I used screws with small washers, every 2 feet or so, and it did the job. I overlapped each sheet 1 inch over the preceeding one to be sure that dirt won't reach the wood behind. I will receive bamboo bars this week and next week-end, if theweather is good, I'l have some help to cut down the wooden frame and the bamboo bars. After that I can work inside my house to fit everything to gether. I still need to clean it, but here is the result:
Last Edit: Feb 12, 2007 12:05:53 GMT -5 by kitana8
So Saturday I've got a little help and we solidified and straightened all the wooden frames for the bamboo bars. Today, I dirilled the holes in 3 frames and installed them in front of the windows. Every frame can be opened, so in summer time I still have access to the glass windows if I want to open them up, and then close back the frame.
Thank you. It has been so much work from the beginning to there, most people that saw the shed 4 months ago can't believe their eyes, they thought I had some kind of a day dream when I talked about an aviary in that shed... So I'll keep this thread updated, if someone has a similar project it can give them ideas who knows!
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."
Finally... 4 months later... It's done! I still have to clean the floor and cover it with lino, finish the preparation chamber and add perches but all teh rest, all the hard work is done... So here are the pics, I will ba happy to receive comments, in public or private, especially the negative ones so I can adjust the details before getting the bird! Thanks to everyone who helped, even behind a computer screen it has been unvaluable help!
OK, so a detail shot of the inside of the separating wall before we covered it with coroplast (yes Daddy was there, I needed male muscles to fix the upper part of the wall on the ceiling!) :
Finished wall from outside the aviary:
Same wall from inside:
The door...
The perch before the windows... I will probably put it higher and use another kind of astroturf...
And a high perch along the wall, covered in sisal rope (wow, if anyone has tricks or tips on how to effectively wrap this stuff around a perch it would be welcome...):
Okay, I guess no one can say that everything is finally done in a mews, everything is in fact in evolution... I made some changes after speaking to a BoP specialist veterinarian who rehabbed thousands of BoPs, and he gave me very good advices. I suspended the window perches and put them higher so the bird won't bate toward the windows (hopefully...). That way, the perches will be able to absorb the shock when the birds will fly directly from one to another and prevent feet problems, the mews is so large that the bird will be able to gain speed but won't have time to really put on the brakes... I placed my rope perch in the middle of the room, and I added a movable T perch that I can place wherever it needs to be. There will also be a tire on the ground so I can do environmental enrichment using this tire. The linoleum flooring will be there this week, and then I will clean everything, remove the working table and finish the preparation area. The bird will be there in 2 weeks! A MHH. Yes, I will have to heat the mews next winter!