Killer Revealed

I believe I have found what has been killing my birds. Last night I let the dogs outside to go to the toilet and they went flying down to aviary to chase away a cat. While down there I could pat one of my Scarlet Chested females on the chest as she was perched up against the wire, the cat could have easily killed it if it had good access.

It makes sense as the cat would have poor access to my other aviary. The Green Cheeked Conures sleep in there breeding box and there is no real way for a cat to get at the Princess and Indian Ring Neck Parrots.

My suspicions have been confirmed. I will be lodging a complain to council.

Bird Temperament

Most of the birds are getting more and more used to my presence in the aviary and are generally allowing me to get much closer. In the case of the Princess Parrots I can now feed them by hand if they are due for seed, I look forward to building this relationship with them and perhaps even getting them to start sitting on my hand.

Scarlet Chested Parrot Mortality

My trouble continues losing both my male Scarlet Chested parrots within a week of each other!!

I'm at a loss to explain the deaths so I have decided to removed all birds from the aviary and fully strip out and clean the cage.

My top theory was a local cat that is hanging around the house is killing the birds. It has poor access to the yard during the day with the dogs patrolling but easy could get close access during the night when then birds are easily sneaked up on and sleep very close to the edge of the cage.

After cleaning out the cage I found a large spider with a white tip on it abdomen living behind there feeder. I'm unsure if a spider will bite or could kill a bird but it would explain a lot if it could. I would suspect that most birds would have a natural immunity to spider bites due to the fact that most places they choose to nest in the wild are frequented by spiders but I'm unsure and finding hard to find information on it. 

These are healthy birds, it is very frustrating.