Housing: A flight cage with a view

How much room could two small birds actually need? More than you think. We initially bought one of the one square foot cages they sell at Petsmart, but before an hour had passed watching our birds hop back and forth, I was drawing up a design for a larger cage. This would subsequently be more than doubled in size to accomodate our growing family as well as undergoing multiple interior design modifications before finding its final position on our large 38th floor patio overlooking downtown Miami and the ocean. With year round daytime temperatures averaging 80-90 and 60-70 at night, as well as the 12+ hours of warm sunshine, our birds are thriving.

I have read in numerous places that it is not the height of the cage, but the width that is important for finches.  I must say that I do not entirely agree with this statement.  While it is important to have enough width for finches to fly horizontally, the statement that finches do not fly vertically is not correct, in my experience.  It is true that most birds, when newly acquired from short caged environments, do not have the strength required to fly straight up, but they quickly acclimate to such a task, and before long are zipping horizontally and vertically with no effort.  I believe that the extra height of a cage allows a cage setting to have varied levels, that allow the birds some room of their own, even when in a mixed collection.  Some of my finches (e.g. firefinches) spend most of their time on the bottom level, even nesting near the bottom of the cage.  Others (e.g. Parrots, Gouldians) spend most of their time near the top of the cage, with only occasional trips to the bottom for the bird bath or to pick around the soil of the ground plants.  The point is, even though these birds share a cage, they rarely interfere with each other due to their natural tendencies.  They also have become much stronger flyers due to the need to fly vertically.  

So if you have to choose between height and width when building a cage, you should go with a good width to allow adequate horizontal flying.  But if you can, add a bit of extra height to your cage, and I assure you, your birds will be stronger and happier as a result.

Our first cage was 3'x3'x2' and eventually would comfortably house 4 pairs

But as our flock grew, our cage had to as well.  6'x3'x2', initially separated except for a small opening on the right side, we would eventually remove this to build one complete space.

All of our finches are very peaceful and get along well, that is except for our pioneer zebras.  Due to their growing family and boisterous attitudes we bought them a separate cage we have named Z-land.  Now they can get as wild as they want without annoying the quieter peace loving finches in the big flight cage.

My very favorite finch, a Gouldian named Sprite, would rather look at the camera then the ocean view she sees everyday.