on the Transport of Birds.



299



and place, for opportunities of taking good birds out or home

do not always come just when one is prepared for them.


Therefore I recommend using the barred floor over a draw-

tray or board, as with this the cleaning becomes a matter of less

urgent importance. The principle is used in parrots’ cages,

ships’ hen-coops and in our poultry-fattening coops here, as well

as in the admirable Chinese transport cages, and it seems strange

it has not spread further.


There is an idea about, I think, that barred floors will hurt

a bird’s feet, but this is entirely erroneous. Of course the bars

should have sharp edges rounded off, and if this is done, even

waterfowl, which are, naturally, tenderer-footed than laud birds,

will travel all right on such a floor. Indeed, it is far more

natural for them, or for any birds, to tread on more or less

yielding bars with uneven pressure on the foot, than on a hard

level board, which is particularly apt to give corns.


For such birds as parrots, which will gnaw through wood,

the floor-bars must be wire or wire-netting, but otherwise wood

should be used, though I have seen Toucans and Tanagers im¬

ported in fine condition on a wire-netting floor.


It may also be objected that such a floor is never quite

clean. That is true, but neither is a solid floor in a small ship¬

board cage, even if cleaned daily ; and at any rate there is no

danger of thick clogging dirt, which is what is really serious.


The width of the spaces between the bars or of the netting-

mesh should be about an inch for birds of a pigeon’s size or

over, and half-an-inch for canary-sized birds, and so 011.


The one drawback of this method is that if the food is

spilled on the floor, the birds may go unfed for a long time, if the

mesh of the grating be too small or the height above the draw-

tray too great, to enable them to reach the spilled food.


But then this should not happen ; one very essential point

in bird-transport is so to fasten the feeding and drinking vessels

that they cannot be upset by any possibility. Of course many

birds will throw out their food themselves, but a deep feeding-

vessel, with narrowed top, will obviate this to a great extent.

All feeding-vessels should be made so as to be accessible from

the front and should go inside.



