Heating and lighting basics for the birdroom

If you have any aspiration to breed birds, you must provide them with the best heat and light conditions you can afford. The outlay may not be huge, but there are more choices involved than you might think! FRED WRIGHT takes a holistic view involving the entire birdroom

- FRED WRIGHT

IT IS far easier to think about heating and lighting when your birdroom or aviary is at the planning stage than it is to think about anything to do with electrics after the room is built. At the outset, you should be considering what you need, how it will be fitted and the wiring that will be required to supply each and every electrical product.

Think especially about the supply of the electricity to the birdroom itself. At all times, it is vital to consider safety and to be ready to consult experts at every stage. My father was an electrician and his key words were always: “Leave electrics to those who know what they are doing.” If we need any evidence in favour of bringing in the specialists, we only have to think of some of the serious birdroom fires we have heard about in recent years – all of which were put down to electrical faults.

One thing it is NOT safe to consider is to run power to the birdroom simply via an extension lead clipped to the fence going down the garden. Specialist cable needs to be buried well under the ground and connected to the house at one end and the birdroom at the other. The advice from the experts will always be to ensure it’s connected to a separate, fused box at the birdroom end. Then if anything goes wrong in the birdroom, it will knock out the fuse and the current gets killed. Be ready to take advice from the experts all the time – and even if you feel brave enough to undertake the wiring yourself, get it checked and connected by professionals – and not just someone who claims to know a bit about electrics, even if it’s a bit more than you!