Hospital Cage

A hospital cage is important equipment that helps to take care of your pet. It is the best option whenever a bird or an animal needs special attention. For example, if your pet bird is sick or injured, it has to be immediately separated from the rest of the flock. Or if any bird is showing signs of illness and not eating or drinking properly or sleeping too much it needs urgent attention. In such situation, a fully equipped hospital cage helps to provide adequate care.

Usually, finches have a tendency to frequently fall sick. When they fall ill, their body temperature drops fast and they die easily. A well-equipped hospital cage helps out to retain their body temperature and save them. It also helps to maintain warmth during cold nights. Besides this, the hospital cage is mostly used during the breeding season of finches.

Sometimes, hens become egg-bound as they cannot pass its egg during its first breeding season. It requires proper management and adequate assistance to handle the task efficiently. Further, if a hen is suffering from thin shell egg problem it should be directly detached out from its mate. You can simply put it in a hospital cage and feed it with egg shells, cuttle fish bone and liquid calcium supplement through water.

How to build a hospital cage?

It is very simple to construct a hospital cage with an arrangement for light in a box. Firstly, collect equipments like glass, a plastic tub, towel, food and water bowls, old newspapers, tubular heaters with plugs, disinfectant, first aid kit, electric bulbs, thermometer, beaker, and electrical wires.

Make use of plywood, softwood or melamine covered chip board to make the cage. Obtain a plastic tub and line its base by old newspaper or towels. You should not leave the sides uncovered. Make use of another towel to cover the top and tie it firmly with a string or rope. Add food and water bowls and provide adequate warmness by electric bulbs on top of the tub pointing toward the box.

You can also buy hospital cages from pet care stores. Usually hospital cages are available in two sizes: A small size cage and a large sized hospital cage. It differs in price, but more or less contains the same elements. Such cages can be bought from retail outlets. Small hospital cages are useful for Finches, Canaries and budgies.

Precautions to be taken before placing a bird in a hospital cage:

• Use of full brightness can be done when you place the bird for the first time in a cage as the wood and glass may be freezing
• Never put a bird into a pre heated warm hospital cage. You should always keep a bird at room temperature first and then turn the power on. It helps the bird to adjust its body temperature accordingly.
• It is good to add glucose and electrolyte additive to the bird’s water to overcome unnecessary stress.
• You can place in the outside aviary, only when it gets fully recovered.
• Timely and proper cleanliness of the hospital cage should be thoroughly practiced.
• Disinfect the hospital cage after use if you are going to use it for another bird. It helps to prevent spread of infection to next bird if the previous bird had any kind of illness.

If you keep birds, a hospital cage is an absolutely vital piece of equipment. It is also handy for small mammals but you will be amazed the effect it has on avian patients. Basically, a hospital cage is a box cage with a glass front that you can slide in and out as well as a conventional wire cage front that can also be slid into a second groove at the same time. It is fitted with food pots and perches and a thermometer fixed to the back wall. The door is in the side and there is a ventilation panel near the top of the opposite side, but beneath all this is a separate compartment containing two or more electric light bulbs to provide heat, and a thermostat which can be controlled from outside the cage. The floor between the two compartments is best made of a sheet of metal to allow the heat through, though this should be covered with a piece of felt or something similar so that it is not uncomfortable to stand on. You need to be able to raise the temperature in the cage to about 32°C(90°F) and, if you can find them, carbon filament lamps produce more heat than modern ones but they are difficult to come 'across nowadays for that very reason.

If you are keeping birds, do make sure that they are on their perches at night before you turn off the lights as it is very difficult to fly up to a perch in the dark and the bird might do himself affair amount of damage while crashing about in a cage. This is easy enough if you keep a single budgie, but if you have several birds Gina bird room it is worth investing in a dimmer with a time switch so that your birds have time to get back to their roosting perches before dark.