Hi All,
I recently bought a slightly rusty large old bird cage for MunchieMunchkin (a roughly 5-month old gray) and painted it with RustOleum hammered copper spray paint. It looks fantastic, but... the minute I put her in there, she started chewing the painted metal, despite all the pine and oak boards and dowels I put in there for her. This caused a panic.
Before going down this road I did carefully read the paint cans - there are no warnings on the paint can about treating objects to be used around infants, etc., so I went into this thinking it safe. After this evening's panic, I saw on another thread that people here have recommended treating rusting cages with rustoleum primer and then overpainting with latex, etc. I assume that the "Hammered" spray I used is basically primer, though I'm not 100% certain - it may be primer plus other stuff. I did read the MSDS for this product, and the really scary stuff appears to do with the solvents, which shouldn't be an issue because the cage dried for several days.
She has chewed the bejeezus out of her other cage, but that's the typical white enamal coating on the metal.
So... my question is; is this ultimately a safe environment for her, knowing that she's likely to chew the painted metal? Do I need to scrap this cage and go for something else?
Also - I was wondering if bitter apple could be applied to the cage metal to make it less likely for her to chew and steer her to chewing the wood. Just a thought.
Thanks in advance,
Jeff