Murphy panicked yesterday and somehow managed to get a wing caught in between the bars of his cage. Most of the bars are 1/2", but he managed to get himself stuck right by the door where it is slightly smaller.

Now I'm a little nervous about the safety of said cage. There was also a reference in another thread on a CAG rescue being housed in this same cage style calling it a "finch cage", which made me a little nervous but since it specifically said "parrot cage" on the box I let it go (I don't remember the brand. I'll post pics when I can, but it's one of those w/ 8 feeder doors and 2 large doors, 30"x36"x19", white epoxy coated w/ decorations on the doors kind of in the shape of a heart). It's been fine for almost 4 months, other than a broken bar in the back which was fixed.

Should I be shopping for a new cage? Can anyone recomend a good cage, less than 20" deep, fairly inexpensive? The budget's a little tight right now but I'd hate to see something happen to him while I'm at work or something.

I know fluke things can happen in any cage. I keep my 2 caiques in separate cages but the bar spacing is 1/2 inch..love those cages. Havent had any probs, but like i said flukes can happen in any of them. I personally dont think the spacings can be too small but i presume that there could be some designs are flawed. So you are the only one that can examine your cage closely and make that judgement.

I feel that every bird should have the recommended bar spacing for them, unless they have a disability that would prevent that cage from being safe. The only one of my birds in a cage with incorrect bar spacing is Peanut who has severly splayed legs and is missing toes. It is hard for him to hang onto the cage unless he can get his feet around two rungs at once. If he is on one bar only, he falls every time.

a potential problem with putting birds in cages with wire spacing close together is generally the closer the spacing the small gauge the wire. This being said, the smaller the gauge the smaller the weld the more apt a larger bird is to break the weld or the wire itself. Again, this depends on each individual bird...I've known of some quakers to do just fine in a large parakeet cage...but Ive seen other quakers in the same cage basically dismantle that cage peice by peice by breaking welds and snapping wire.

As was stated in Kates response, freak accidents do happen and only you can be the judge of your birds strength and weaknesses and make decisions according ly. We've had quakers in a finch flight cage but they are very young quakers who aren't testing the wires strength all the time...I would suggest getting at least and 18 x 18 with 5/8 to 3/4 inch in fact mine have 1" spacing with a good guage of wire. The cage I have is a president cage. THey are a pretty decent cage for the money... and that's the smallest I would have an adult quaker in.

Hope that helps some.