Whatever cage you choose, I recommend that you attach a roost box. If you cannot do this, buy a birdie buddy or one of the cloth tent-like things. All of my caiques like to sleep in a box. A roost box is the same as a nest box; the only difference is that the bird uses it for sleeping. Of course, they will also lay their eggs in it too. In the wild, caiques and most parrots originating from South America roost in cavities. Unfortunately, most commercial cages were not designed for attaching a roost box. You can easily install one though. When you buy your cage, you should also buy a large plywood budgie nest box or a cockatiel nest box. If you buy a budgie box, enlarge the entrance hole enough for your caique to enter. Some recent cage and box designs make it easy to attach them. More likely you will have to cut two or three bars. The number depends on the spacing of the bars and the width of the entry hole to the roost box. It is best to install the box on the outside of the cage with large flat washers and fender bolts. Some boxes have pre-drilled holes, but most likely you will have to drill two holes in the box through which to put the bolts. When possible, position the bolts just above a horizontal bar so that the box will not creep down the cage. It is also a good idea to place the nut on the exterior of the box so you can tell if your bird has loosened it. You may place wood shavings or other bedding in the box, but sometimes your bird will not accept them. At one time, my Sammy preferred a completely empty roost box, only later I was able to introduce wood shavings. Use shavings made from untreated wood, not treated wood intended for outdoor construction. Treated wood contains either cromated copper arsenate (CCA) or ammoniacal copper arsenate (ACA) as a preservative. Pet shops stock wood shavings intended for nest boxes and you can use the same chips for a roost box. If it is a very young bird that has just weaned, it may not realize that it is not supposed to defecate in its roost box. If this is the case, line the bottom of the box with paper towels that you can change every morning. Once the baby has stopped defecating in its box, you can stop changing towels and add the wood chips. Giving your bird a roost box will relieve you of the need to cover the cage at night.

There is another recommendation I make concerning the choice of a cage. Unlike most other parrot species, caiques have a habit of flicking their food about. To counter this, buy a rectangular cage with the glass or plastic inserts at the bottom if you can find one large enough. These are intended to prevent cockatiels from scattering their seed. Replace the glass or plastic inserts with a sheet of the clear rigid polyacrylic plastic so that it covers the entire side of the cage. You can buy these clear plastic sheets and the tool for cutting them at most home centers. You should cut the sheet so it slips into the slot originally intended for the shorter seed guard. Secure the top of the sheet to the cage with a heavy spring clip available from an office supply store. This shield will keep your bird from decorating everything near its cage. I have installed these splatter shields on the backs of most of my caique cages, and you can install them on the sides as well. I leave them off the front to allow easy entry. Now, rather than cleaning the entire area around the bird, you just remove the plastic sheet and soak off the debris in either your bathtub or with a hose outside. These shields will save you time and money by keeping the area around the outside of the cage free of the gooey fruits that dry to a hard crust on your floor and furnishings.

You also need to provide perches for the cage. If you buy a new cage, they are provided, but you may have to replace a perch sometime. Perch chewing is not usually the problem for pet caiques owners as it is for breeders, but individual birds may do this. The standard perches sold in pet stores are OK, but I find they cost too much. Further, most aviculturists recommend that you do not use only dowel rod perches because the diameter of the perch you select may not be the most comfortable for your bird. For these reasons, I either buy my perches at a home center or simply cut one off a convenient tree. When you buy a perch, be sure to buy one made from hard wood--the harder the better. If it is not a hard wood, but soft pine, you may be back buying another perch in less than a week. This is because one way caiques entertain themselves is chewing their perches, and the softer the wood the more inviting it is to chew. This is not unique for caiques, and many bird shops sell manzanita branch perches. Manzanita is exceptionally hard, but even these may be chewed and need replacement. A home center is a good place to buy both dowels and regular hard wood lumber for perches. As previously noted for wood chips, avoid treated lumber. When you buy dowels, select a diameter between ½ to ¾ inch. The dowel rods sold by home centers are of hard wood so they should last for some time. However, I prefer short rectangular lengths of 1" x 2" and 2" x 2" hardwood lumber. Both oak and fir are suitable for caiques. I prefer the lumber to the dowels because you do not have to be very talented at cutting the grooves in the ends of the dowel. When the lumber is used, set the wider dimension vertically between the bars so that the bird grips the 1" (actually ¾") width. To install a lumber perch, first measure the length that it has to be in order to fit in the cage. If the cage is rectangular, make the perches longer than the cage's width. This allows you to mount them diagonally across the cage. Mounting perches this way has an advantage because caiques tend to chew off one end of the perch. Thus if you start with a longer perch than you really need, you can refinish the chewed end and remount it at a smaller angle. This saves having to buy new perches as often. If you want to avoid buying perches at all, and you have suitable trees available, you may make perches using branches of appropriate diameter. If you do this, you need to be careful to cut branches from trees that are safe for your bird to chew. If you use limbs, sterilize or disinfect them. If it is short enough, you can sterilize it by baking it in an oven for 20 minutes at 225°F. If it is too long to fit your oven, soak it in a dilute solution of chlorine bleach or Nolvasan. Rinse it well before you install it. Finally, do not mount all the perches horizontally. Mount one or two at a steep vertical angle. Caiques are good climbers and climbing up and down the steep perches provides them entertainment and helps keep their nails in trim.

You should carefully consider where to place the cage in your home. Pet caiques enjoy being where the action is, so place the cage near where you spend much of your time. I do not recommend keeping the cage in the TV room if you spend your late evening hours there. Caiques, like most birds, like to get their sleep. I provide them with between 13 and 14 hours of daylight and mine usually are in their boxes before 8 PM. Sometimes excessive noise keeps them awake, and a tired bird can be cranky. Sometimes you can tell when a bird is thinking about sleep by when it grinds its beak. My pet birds enjoy looking out a window and they spend hours watching all the outdoor activity. As long as it is not too drafty, place the cage near a window and let them have this pleasure. Finally, do not place the cage in the kitchen. The fumes from Teflon pans and from self-cleaning ovens (Stoltz et al., 1992) can kill birds in a matter of seconds. If you elect not to put the plastic spatter shields on as mentioned above, place the cage in a room with floor and walls that can be easily cleaned.

There is one other thing you will want to add to the cage--toys. Caiques love toys, particularly ones that make a noise. So add a toy with a bell, one that squeaks or rattles and at least one toy made of soft wood to provide something for the bird to chew. They also like colored toys, especially red ones. Pet stores sell toys made especially for birds, but you can buy toys meant for human infants that are just as nice and usually less expensive. Because of liability concerns, those meant for infants may even be safer than those made especially for birds. Sometimes you do not have to spend any extra money on toys. Caiques like the colored caps off plastic bottles and toothbrushes. The cardboard tubes from your toilet paper or paper towels are safe for caiques, but not for all parrots. A crumpled up newspaper can provide a caique with hours of entertainment. The only problem with toys is that you may fill the cage so full of them there is no room left for the bird.

Finally, I can not emphasize enough how extraordinarily foolish it is to leave your bird outdoors unattended in a commercial cage intended for indoor use. While cages sold in your local pet shop seem sturdy to you, they are not! All of them were designed for indoor use. Commercial cages are designed more for human convenience than for birds. This means there are all sorts of openings into the cage, and your bird can escape through any one of them should it topple. Not only can your bird escape the cage easily, but a bird in a cage is an easy target for predators including our common domestic carnivores. You may believe your bird is safe from cats, dogs and other predators, but this is a common mode by which birds are lost. Dogs are not always the cute and cuddly animals you think they are. I have suffered such a loss myself, and I am aware of several others who have lost birds to domestic predators. If a dog, particularly a strange dog, can reach the cage, the result is almost inevitably the escape or death of your parrot. Furthermore, most small parrots seem to feel much safer in a familiar indoor environment. You will notice this if you take your bird outside. When it sees a large bird fly or even a low flying plane it may panic and try to fly away. In the wild, hawks and harpy eagles are major predators of parrots. So they have good reason to be frightened. Snakes are predators that can easily invade cages. If you want to keep your bird outdoors, build it a sturdy vermin-proof aviary.

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