The Cleaning Report

Today it was the Aviary (shown below) on the cleaning block. The problem is that, though I bought the birdies a nice, covered, designated bird bath they still line up to take their bath in their water dish. Sigh... So I've had a build up of water spots where their tail feather shaking has sprayed water on the plexiglass. The plexiglass slides in place like a guillotine, so I had to figure out a way to raise it so I could reach around and wipe it down to clean without creating a gap they could fly through. So, I made a paper tassle curtain that I taped to the bottom of the glass, so when I needed to reach under one end, the rest would cover the gap.

And, on the record, birds beat cats for curiosity. One of the finches still hopped over to check out the paper (I had to tap it to make her buzz off).

Do-It-Yourself Aviary

The one thing I don't like about commercial bird cages is you have to stare through bars to see your birds. You also don't have much say in custom sizes. I wanted the bird's enclosure to hang in the bay window, above the bearded dragon, during the warm months (or 3/4's of the Texas year), and for winter they will have a different enclosure that will go over the mantle.

So I got some plexiglass, some egg crate light panels, some custom wire shelving units, some decorative chains, some wooden dowel rods, a few live plants and some fake ones, and about a million zip ties, and a few hundred sketches later I have my aviary.

Welcome to Pet-a-Palooza!

Welcome to the blog for the Deutsch-y pets and friends. There are just too many things I wanted to post about my pets on my "Artist's Blog" so I started this blog just for pets. I'll be inviting some folks to be contributors to the blog so they can brag on their pets here, too.

And since I'm kicking things off, I guess we need a roll call: (reading off from L to R, Top to Bottom)

1. Topsy and Turvy, Sugar Gliders (originally from Australia/Indonesia)
2. Klondike, the Gold Dust Day Gecko (originally from Madagascar)
3. Pip and Squeak, the Orange Cheeked Waxbills & Gordie and Phedre, the Cordon Blue Waxbills (both originally from Africa)
4. Enzo, the Italian Greyhound (originally from Egypt)
5. Cooper, the Chinchilla (originally from Chile)
6. Reno, the Mali Uromastyx (originally from Pakistan)
7. Brisby, the Bearded Dragon (originally from Australia)
8. Capote, the Corn Snake & Dexter, the Western Hognose (both native to SW U.S.)
9. Yaarp and Uluru, the White's Treefrogs (originally from Australia)
10. Rodan, the Tokay Gecko (originally from Indonesia)
11. Basil and Saffy, the Spice Finches (originally from Asia) & Nick and Nora, the Society Finches (originally developed as a man-made species in Holland from a mix of mannikin species)
12. Chrysopholax, the Leopard Gecko (originally from Pakistan)

Plus:

Regan, the Author, Illustrator, Care-taker (originally from Little Rock, AR) & Mike, Computer Genius, Golfer, Mess-cleaner (originally from Glastonbury, CT)