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But saying that being on wire won't hurt them is not right. You can use 1/2 HWC but it's still a good idea to have at least part of their floor solid. When mine were in individual wire cages they each had at least a 12" x 12" piece of board to stand on in addition to their dust pans and sleeping boxes. In a 2' x 2' cage, that didn't leave much area of the floor not covered. In the pen they are in now, they are almost always on solid flooring by choice.
That kind of defeats the purpose of a wire floor IMHO.
If a mostly solid floor works for you, then knock yourself out. I'm not going to tell you how to raise your birds. I just try to give my best guess at what works, based on my small flock. I'm no expert, but since 50% of my 200 coturnix flock is 3-4 years old....I could be doing something right, but how I raise birds may not work for everyone. An 8"x12" dust pan in a 2'x2' seams to work fine for me, as far as a solid floor goes. Others may need more, because of skeeters, bumblefoot and such. I'm just saying that where ever wire is concerned, 1/2" HWC should be deployed.
Honestly, if you haven't tried partial-solid flooring then you don't really know, do you? I have to clean the closed-in part of their pen once or twice a year, they mainly use that side in the winter. The other side gets 'cleaned' by them running around and playing or I'll get a garden hoe and scrape the 'stuff' onto the wire side so it will fall through. Other than that, there's not much difference.
