Since I'm looking at a new bird. I took a look at an old cage I had that I put outside last winter. I found a decent bit of rust on the welds and some on the bars. I've been trying to clean it up and found minor chips in the coating. If I get all the rust off, can I use this cage temporarily. I would like to get a new cage a month or so afterwards, but I would need a temporary cage for the month. The rust is very superficial and comes off very easily.

IMO...i don't think I would use it.... If it were me I'd rather put a few bucks into a smaller/good condition cage until the larger one could come along. From what I understand rust is a MAJOR health problem. Hope that helps. keep us posted on what you decide!

Yes your bird can get toxin poison from the rust please do not use it.

I have always been told that if you can get the majority of the rust off, clean it well, then spray paint it w/ child toy safe paint and let it "air out" til there is NO more smell then its safe to use for a bird! My neighbor did this YEARS ago for her CAG and the bird is still in that cage and is healthy as a can be! Ask your avian vet but like I said they told us that any paint that is safe for childrens toys is safe for our birds

I would be extremely careful with this if you remove the rust and then do not repaint it with safe paint. You do not know what alloys the metal under the coat contains, and this can prove to be deadly.

If you can get all the rust off, and you nueturlize it with vinegar then find someone to powder coat the whole cage, it should be safe. Once it is powder coated again, you still want to rub it all down with vinegar to nueturlize the zinc. I use to do it once a week just to be safe.

It's very important to make sure you get every bit of rust off even if you have to use a brillo/sos pad or steel wool, sand paper what ever it takes. It is also very important to nueturlize everything with Vinegar and have it painted with a powder coating. Most automotive paint shops can help you with that.