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This is a female Brown Booby. She was injured on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i. She is currently being nursed back to health by a permitted migratory bird rescue agent operating on Kaua'i.
The Booby is doing well, but needs a little more time to recover and a caging set-up with soft sides and clean flowing water for this pelagic bird. Without access to expensive bird rehabilitation pools, we needed to come up with a cheap and easily-constructed habitat that would allow the booby to get into the water without damaging feathers or the waterproof structure of them.
This instructable documents how we built our habitat, which is inexpensive, easy to build, and suitable for rehabilitation of Boobies, Shearwaters, and other water birds.
The Booby is doing well, but needs a little more time to recover and a caging set-up with soft sides and clean flowing water for this pelagic bird. Without access to expensive bird rehabilitation pools, we needed to come up with a cheap and easily-constructed habitat that would allow the booby to get into the water without damaging feathers or the waterproof structure of them.
This instructable documents how we built our habitat, which is inexpensive, easy to build, and suitable for rehabilitation of Boobies, Shearwaters, and other water birds.
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Signing UpStep 1Requirements
A good home for Boobies needs to have a few things: a deep pool, a dry perch for the booby, circulating water, and some way of keeping debris from accumulating on the water's surface. Boobies won't get into their water if it isn't clean. Accumulated feces, feathers, pieces of dead fish and other nasty debris will keep the booby out of her pool.
We didn't have the money to invest in an expensive commercial pool filter system, so we had to come up with a cheaper solution. Our design is really simple and achieves several of our goals: a small stream of water enters the pool from a garden hose, continuously filling the pool, while a small opening at the back of the pool allows the water to drain. This creates a constantly flowing water surface, where any floating debris are continuously pulled out of the pool with the flowing of the water.
In order to build such a system, we need a few things:
1. A deep pool of some kind. We used a 300 gallon Rubbermade container.
2. A garden hose with a variable-flow sprinkler head.
3. PVC pipes, soft nylon netting, and some strong string. These will be used to build the pool's walls.
4. A drainage system for the pool. We used a 5 gallon bucket with chicken wire as a filter, with a pool draining hose coming out the bottom of the bucket.
We scavenged the tub, pipes, chicken wire, bucket, and netting from the storage closet, though all could be purchased at the neighborhood big-box hardware store. We ended up spending about $40 on some PVC fittings and a pool draining hose, a sprinkler head, and some zip ties.
For tools we used a measuring tape, saw, drill with bits and a hole saw kit, wire snips, and a utility knife.
Duct tape, as always, was helpful to have around.
We didn't have the money to invest in an expensive commercial pool filter system, so we had to come up with a cheaper solution. Our design is really simple and achieves several of our goals: a small stream of water enters the pool from a garden hose, continuously filling the pool, while a small opening at the back of the pool allows the water to drain. This creates a constantly flowing water surface, where any floating debris are continuously pulled out of the pool with the flowing of the water.
In order to build such a system, we need a few things:
1. A deep pool of some kind. We used a 300 gallon Rubbermade container.
2. A garden hose with a variable-flow sprinkler head.
3. PVC pipes, soft nylon netting, and some strong string. These will be used to build the pool's walls.
4. A drainage system for the pool. We used a 5 gallon bucket with chicken wire as a filter, with a pool draining hose coming out the bottom of the bucket.
We scavenged the tub, pipes, chicken wire, bucket, and netting from the storage closet, though all could be purchased at the neighborhood big-box hardware store. We ended up spending about $40 on some PVC fittings and a pool draining hose, a sprinkler head, and some zip ties.
For tools we used a measuring tape, saw, drill with bits and a hole saw kit, wire snips, and a utility knife.
Duct tape, as always, was helpful to have around.
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Huge kudos to those of you with more couth than I.
This was my first thought when I saw the title:
What ever happened to a band-aids or a t-shirt and an ace bandage?
...which by the way might have even worked in this situation at one time or another in the re-hab process.
Meanwhile, I respect your efforts- worked bird rescue in AK and I know how unbelievably time and work intensive it can be so, continue to take good care of the boobies- all of them!! :O)
...and make sure everyone understands the ducT tape..../
-k
...and why'd the new intern just scamper away so quickly?
Cheers, thank you for your kind words and bird rescue efforts.