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You can have your well water checked by your local water or health department, but be sure that they check it for all contaminates since in most cases they only test water to the degree that the organisms that it contains will cause harm to people. If you still suspect that your birds are being adversely affected by your well water you could install a UV water filtration system in the water line coming into your home. If you install the filter BEFORE the water heater, both the hot and cold water coming from every tap in your home will be completely free of any organisms that could harm you or your birds.

Another way to insure the quality of your bird’s drinking water would be to install a portable Reverse Osmosis (R/O) with a built in UV filtration system under the sink that you use to draw the water for your birds. This will provide you with cold filtered water only at that sink, but it is also a good way to give uncontaminated water to your birds.

Birds can see light and color in the UV spectrum of light, while we humans cannot. Therefore birds see each other differently than we see them under UV lighting conditions. If you had florescent bulbs that gave off UVA and UVB light, it is said that it would help the birds to choose a mate while viewing each other the same way they would look in nature.

These UVA and UVB bulbs do not give off enough UV light to enable a bird to produce its own vitamin D. This can only be done in the presence of sunlight. Since most caged birds are housed indoors the supplement manufacturers have added vitamin D3 to all of the supplements made for birds. So as long as you are using a good vitamin/mineral supplement that contains vitamin D3, it is not necessary to purchase the expensive bulbs that give off UVA and UVB light.

I personally do use the Arcadia lamps which give off the UVA and UVB light waves because I am trying to duplicate, as closely as possible, what my birds would experience if they were outdoors.

I’m not sure that there is a perfect cage for everyone, but I can give you some general guidelines. I believe that you should purchase the largest cage that you can afford and that you have space for in your home. A caged bird that gets plenty of quality exercise will be healthier and happier and live a much longer life than one living its life in a small cage. In my opinion the perfect length would be about 6 feet long. If you place the perches near the top and at either end of this cage the birds will get plenty of exercise flying back and forth. However they will get BETTER QUALITY exercise flying from the bottom of the cage to the upper perches. For this reason I would suggest placing the food dishes on or near the floor of the cage so that the birds have to fly back up to the perches after each meal. Be sure to place the food dishes away from any over hanging perches so that the food will not become soiled.

This link  http://www.birdcages.com/bird-cages/small-bird-cages/altoonadoubleflightcage.cfm?source=gbase&gbid=Altoona_Double_Flight_Cage&TID=AEC023   will take you to a photo of a cage that I really like for my own finches.

This cage comes with a divider, making it easier to catch the birds when it is inserted. During the breeding season I replace the wire divider with a solid divider that I had made at a plastic fabrication shop. This allows me to use both sides as a breeding cage and keeps the pairs from seeing each other which could cause distractions to their breeding activity.