How to Build Nest Boxes for Lovebirds

Video Transcript

"Hi, my name is Madeline Franco and we're here to talk about birds, specifically we're going to address the topic of next boxes. Parrots, generally in the wild, will breed in hollows of trees and in dark places. It's safer and they seem to like it. You will probably want to make it out of plywood. There are metal nest boxes available commercially, but it you're going to make one yourself, unless you have a metal brake, you're probably going to make one out of plywood. Be aware that different birds like different shapes. Some like boots, some like long tunnels, some like vertical nest boxes, some like horizontal ones. For birds that are, what we call, mate aggressive, you'll want to have two exits or two entrances to that nest box so that you won't have any mate aggression problems and any attacks on the mate. If you're going to have your birds in an outdoor aviary to breed them, you will want to be sure that you enclose your nest box. If it is, you put an outer shell on your nest box if it is going to be outdoors and it's going to be wood, you want to put some metal mesh that the bird can't get through. As one who works in re-homing, I will tell you that we get a fair number of birds in that have been allowed to chew, or you don't have to allow them that's just a natural instinct, that they will chew through the wooden part of the nest box and then they run for daylight. So, you don't want to lose your breeders if they're outside, you want to be sure that you encase that nest box with some mesh so that they can't, they can't get out into the wild."