The Dayang Bird Cage is a teal-finished cage with a curved pagoda roof, a deep base tray and wooden perches, for small birds.

Key Features

• Wide swept roof rather than a flat top, which adds height where a bird can actually use it.
• Deep moulded base tray that catches seed husk before it reaches the floor.
• 52 cm wide, 41 cm deep and 62 cm high.
• Coloured finish rather than bare chrome, if the cage has to live in a room you use.
• Front door and two feeder hatches.

Good To Know

• Bar spacing keeps a bird safe, not cage size. A bird that can push its head between the bars can hang itself, and one that can squeeze through escapes. Check the spacing against your species: budgerigars and finches need roughly 1 cm, cockatiels around 1.5 cm, and only the larger parrots belong behind 2 cm bars.
• Height is the least useful dimension in a bird cage. Birds fly horizontally, so width and depth matter far more than a tall cage suggests - and any cage is a minimum, not a substitute for daily time out of it.
• Whatever perches come with a cage, add more of different thicknesses and materials. A bird gripping one diameter all day gets flat, sore feet, and dowels of a single size are the usual cause.
• Clean the tray with hot water and a bird-safe cleaner. Bleach, ammonia, scented sprays, air fresheners and candles all irritate a bird's airways, which are far more sensitive than ours.
• Put the cage against a wall rather than in the middle of a room, out of direct sun and clear of an air-conditioning draught, and cover it at night. A bird exposed on all four sides never fully settles.
• Keep birds well away from the kitchen. Overheated non-stick cookware gives off fumes that kill birds within minutes, and it is one of the commonest causes of sudden death in a pet parrot in an ordinary home.
• A bird that sits fluffed on the cage floor, stops eating or goes quiet needs an avian vet the same day. Birds hide illness until they no longer can, so by the time it shows it is usually well advanced.