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Enclosures By Matt Schmit Choosing the proper type of enclosure to house your lories is an extremely important aspect of lory ownership. Lories are incredibly active birds and thus require a larger cage than most other parrots of similar size. Lories will use the entire cage; they will hop, fly and climb on the bottom, top and all the sides. For this reason, a long and wide cage will be utilized more efficiently than a tall one. Enclosures for Pet Lories For the pet lory owner, keeping a lory indoors and containing the associated mess can be a challenge. However, with a few modifications from traditional parrot keeping, it can be done. The size of the cage chosen is very important. It needs to be large enough to allow the bird plenty of space for climbing and playing, but it also needs to be of a size that allows the owner to easily clean and disinfect the cage on a regular basis. The most common type of enclosure used to house a pet lory is a large parrot cage with acrylic or plastic panels attached to the back and sides. This style of cage gives the bird plenty of space and most of the large parrot cages have wheels so they can be wheeled outside and hosed down. Another popular option for caging lories indoors is using acrylic cages. Acrylic cages come in a variety of styles, sizes and prices that can fit most situations. Some lory owners have used their imaginations and have found some very user friendly caging solutions, such as rabbit and ferret cages. These cages usually have large, deep plastic bases that catch the majority of the mess and are usually longer and wider than tall so the droppings tend to stay in the cage and not around it. They are lightweight, making them easy to clean and are fairly affordable. Enclosures for Breeding Lories There are basically two types of enclosures used to house a breeding pair of lories: a traditional aviary and a suspended flight. The traditional aviary is designed to allow the keeper to walk inside the enclosure and provides plenty of flight space for it inhabitants. While, the traditional aviaries do have some advantages they are expensive and immobile. The suspended aviary is an all wire box made from welded wire. These cages can be made in almost any design and are relatively inexpensive and quite portable. This is the option of caging that we have chosen to use for our birds.
We have four sizes of cages that we use for
our birds. The larger species of lories (i.e. Chalcopsitta
and Lorius species) are housed in cages that are 36" wide x 36"
tall x 96" deep. The "Rainbow" Lorikeets and similar sized species
are housed in cages that are 24" wide x 36" tall x 72" deep.
The smaller species, such as Goldie's Lorikeets, are housed in cages
measuring 24" wide x 24" tall x 48" deep or 24" cube
cages. The birds that are breeding in the 24" cube cages are
routinely flocked in much larger flight cages when they are not breeding.
This allows them to receive plenty of exercise during their "off season". All the cages are suspended from the ceiling, leaving the bottom of the cages 4 feet off the ground. Each cage has an all-wire basket-style feeding station attached to the bottom of the front of the cage, which contains three stainless steel dishes. We prefer to place the dishes at the bottom of the cages so that any discarded food will likely drop through the bottom of the cage instead of staying inside. Also, placing the feeding station on the outside of the cage allows us to easily access it for thorough cleaning.
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