Birdroom Evolution

Earlier this year I posted pictures of Shade and Piper's first play areas.

Then it hit me that I should do another post about how the play areas / birdroom evolved. I kept pushing it back but now is as good a time as any to finally go forward with the post.

The first rendition of the play area below is what Shade and her brother Nemo shared in the first two years of their life or so. This was a combination of my mom and mine's efforts. This was their specific playing area and eventually that grew to be a bit more elaborate. We mostly used boings, swings and homemade orb-like toys and hung regular toys from the structure.



This came to change when I first moved in with the Boy. I had regrouped Shade and Piper's cage next to each other so I could create a common playing area above the cages, however Joey's addition a month later meant that a second play area was created above his cage as well.


Shade and Piper's play area


Joey's play area

While still somewhat minimal, these play areas started to showcase bigger purchased pieces (such as the big white square hanging structures as well as the bigger swing with natural wood pieces) yet still included hand made items, in this case an improved atom-like play structure. Yet, to keep things affordable, the bigger purchased prices were purchased on sale - hunting for great sales was something I had started taking a serious liking to.

As time went by, the play structure in that one bedroom apartment grew bigger. The addition of Petey also meant I had to provide larger play areas since he wouldn't tolerate the other birds too close to him. Additional items were added and towards the end of our stay there, the hanging gyms looked something like this.

Above Shade and Piper's cages







Above Joey and Petey's cages







Again, most of what was hanging was either made by myself or was purchased on sale. I had also, around this time, purchased a Get-A-Grip net although I had no physical place to hang it at the time, it was 50% off so I couldn't say no..

After almost two years, we moved into a bigger apartment. I could now dedicate a whole room to the birds. Being able to move the cages there liberated the living room quite a bit, allowing us to have more elaborate playing areas for them in there too. But it doesn't quite match what was done in the birdroom itself.

At first, it did look rather bare even if you consider that I included most of what used to be hanging in the other apartment (and included that Get-A-Grip net that I was more than happy to finally use), over a short period of time, it did flourish to something more entertaining for the birds I'm sure.

First pictures of the "new" birdroom









Recent video of the birdroom from earlier this year



And while more of the things are now purchased than made nowadays, most of it has always been purchased on sale - it makes things easier and accumulating stuff to hang over the years also helps. I haven't shown pictures of my living room set-ups - mostly because I apparently haven't really taken any - but my philosophy of hunting down bargains also applied there - most of the Java play stands I have in there (all but one really) were discounted before I bought them. The Mother Pluckin' atoms, one was also purchased on sale, same as a Rosie swing that is hanging there. Things don't need to be expensive to be fun for the birds and I do believe they were as happy with the handmade stuff as they are with the purchased items, which really, are more for me as I don't have to spend time making them and the "finished" look is more polished something that appeals to me, NOT the birds. So get creative and hunt down the sales!