Hi everyone!

Skyler is coming home on Saturday! "Happy Dance"

I was getting his cage ready for him, and I just noticed that the bar spacing in the bottom grate is a little bigger than it is in the rest of the cage. The exterior bars are about 5/8" apart, but the bottom grate bars are almost 1" apart. It looks WAY too big me. It looks like his little feet will fall through.

I bought this cage at a bird show a few weeks ago, and I don't know if I can contact the seller for a new bottom grate. I had Skyler's breeder look at the cage to make sure it was appropriate for a QP, and she said it was. I don't know if maybe she overlooked the bottom grate as well.

It's the kind of grate that slides in and out. Does anyone have any suggestions for remedying this problem? I have thought of putting an additional grate down on top of the existing one, but I'm concerned about safety issues. (Little toes getting caught, etc.).

Thanks!

Bridgette,
I personally like to put my birds' potty paper over the bottom grate. Of course, if your bird throws food on the bottom of the cage and you have the potty paper covering the grate, he can go down and get that food poop or no poop! If you can find the name of the company that made the cage, you might be able to get them to send you another grate with better bar spacing for your bird. Well, those are the only suggestions I can come up with. The bigger spacing for the grate probably won't be a problem but then I don't know these birds cam find ways to get into trouble without trying!

Jan, Taavi (QP), Tory (M2), Jesse (LSC2) & Squeaker SkySquawker (QP)

I would try to contact the manufacturer or maybe search the internet for a resale on the bottom grate. Or if you could guarantee the safeness of the metal, try putting a netting of some sort underneath the grate. I'm not sure...good luck on fixing that problem tho!

The spacing on my quaker cage bottom is also 1 inch, it has never posed a problem for her. she plays with her foot toys down there on occasion when she takes them off the top of her cage...but other than that she is rarely on the bottom. If it were me I wouldn't worry too much about it.

Kiwi doesn't play on the bottom of his cage very much but I keep paper down there all the time and change it daily two times. He will sometimes go down there to get a stick. If I keep the paper changed there isn't hardly any poo down there, besides he is usually out of his cage, not in it.

Yeah, now that you mention it, Ellie only goes to the bottom of her cage to get something she wants that she dropped too...so I guess it's not a huge problem. Have your cage set up and see what happens, would probably be best. Might save you some money!

Thanks everyone! I will just see how it goes.

I'll be posting pics VERY SOON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!