Unhappy birdie

[bwalsh0206]

Hello all,

We have an unhappy birdie at home because our hours at work have been crazy lately. Thankfully it will be settling down after the next day or so but in the meantime, it's also getting darker earlier and that's not helping our IRN Remy with her mood and handling being alone either. We were wondering if anyone had ever used lights that were on a timer so they could come on just before sunset so Remy isn't in the dark for an hour before we get home. Does anyone have any advice or recommendations?

Thanks!
Brian

[MissK]

Hey, I think this one's for me to answer.

I have about a million lights on timers for birds at my house. I have a simulated predawn and twilight, a daytime, and a midday extra light for a few hours. It was my intent to keep the day length very regular, in hopes of thwarting a certain somebody's hormonal regurgitation hobby, as well as to provide what he would have had in nature.

Sounds great, doesn't it?

As best I can determine, on the one day a week I can be home for birdie bedtime, the bird will do as he darn well pleases, and hang all my exciting light timers. He also routinely sleeps through both his simulated and natural dawns. If I am home and keeping lights on well into the night, as long as I'm quiet and still, he shuffles off to bedtime by his own schedule anyway, though he might be a little restless about it.

I come home in the middle of the night, nearly every night, and open the front door virtually into the same room where the IRN is. I go quietly past in the dark and I think he settles back to sleep. If I were to put on the light and ask him to play, he would not be amused, but if I leave him till morning he seems his dandy little self.

My conclusion: The Sun cast a long shadow. Birds know the difference. Remy's probably more ticked over being awakened when you come home than over having night fall naturally. Also, I doubt she is fussing over being alone while she is fast asleep. Go ahead and try an evening light, but don't expect any miracle.

[Skyes_crew]

My only suggestion would be to have the light come on 30 minutes before the start of the sun going down so that there isn't the stark contrast of dark to light for Remy. But like MissK said. If they're tired, they're going to sleep no matter if there's a light on or not. I have heard people have been slightly more successful with sun lamps.

[bwalsh0206]

Thank you both for your responses, that is extremely helpful information! We are definitely wanting there to not be a noticeable change for Remy when the sun goes down so to have a light on while it's still up makes a lot of sense. I think our main concern is when we get to winter and the sun is setting at 4:00pm EST and We're not arriving home until nearly 3 hours later. We don't want Remy to be even fussier or not wanting to come out of her cage because she's been in the dark for so long. Also, I'm wondering if either one of you has any experience with specific lights that are better to use than others? We're currently in an apartment so installing a timer switch inside isn't really in the cards for us just yet! We have located an outdoor timer that seems to work with any kind of light that can be plugged in directly into it and we're going to investigate that further but we're all ears for other ideas as well. Thanks again for your time!

Best,
Brian

[Skyes_crew]

Brian...Remy is going to be fussy no matter what light you use this winter...she's a female who will be heading into breeding season fun times ahead for everyone that being said, you want to extend her time in the dark to discourage her breeding instincts. So the winter is actually a good time to get her used to being covered for about 14 hours. You'll want to maintain that 14 hours of darkness going into spring to limit the breeding drive. She'll still have other things to contend with such as nesting behavior but light plays a big part it. So if you have to leave the house early in the morning for work, I would let her go to bed at 4pm and wake at 6am. I know you'll miss her a lot, but spoil her like crazy on the weekend. But keep the same sleep schedule on the weekend too.

[MissK]

More thoughts on timers.......

1) Use a mechanical (non digital) timer if you will be wanting to use those fancy curly CFL lightbulbs. They have some kind of smartness inside that makes them incompatible with the fancier timers. CFLs also make trouble for dimmer switches. I had trouble with some lamp that had a fancy step-on button on switch, but it might have been because it had a reset button. Weird. Don't use a lamp that uses them. I also killed a switchless "touch lamp" using CFLs, so no fancy touch lamps.

2) USE the fancy curly CFL lightbulbs. Sure, they fade over time, so you have to replace them sooner than you might think. Don't expect them to last as long as the silly multi-year blurb on the package. But, if you want a lot of light without worrying they're going to get too hot and burn the place down, CFLs might help with that. And here's the main reason I suggest them - I put a pair of (oversized) 200 watt equivalent daylight spectrum FEIT brand CFLs in my kitchen ceiling fixture, and it's like high noon at the equator in there! Really outstanding. When the dog's wagging tail stops casting a profound shadow, I retire the bulbs to a less critical area of the house and put in fresh ones. At $10/bulb this ain't cheap, but the results are amazing. I have this much light in the kitchen because I have a lot of trouble motivating in the morning. It helps. I never gave Rocky this much light, but maybe I should.

3) It's easier to wake a bird early with light when it's dark out than it is to keep a bird awake with inferior light in the evening.

4) When you use the timer, be careful to not overload it, electricity-wise. Sure, you can put in a multi-outlet adapter plug and run two lights on the same timer, but the timer will get warm, and you know that is evidence of trouble brewing. For this reason choose the smallest timer you can find. Many of them will block the second outlet of a pair (due to large size) and this is most disappointing. Get one with non-losable pegs, and a manual-on switch as well as auto-timing. TIP: You can arrange multiple on/off times with those non-losable pegs.

5) Links for examples:
http://www.smarthome.com/56206/Sylvania ... tts/p.aspx

http://www.target.com/p/room-essentials ... 4AodP2IARg

**PLEASE NOTE** This FEIT bulb uses 46 watts, and so is unsuitable for my example light in the link just above. 32 watts was the highest CFL rating in lamps I found on the Target website. If you can find a lamp to run it, it's just brilliant! Possibly something with a ceramic socket will carry a higher rating.
http://www.feit.com/compact-fluorescent ... /esl40tn-d

[jmlw7]

Brian...Remy is going to be fussy no matter what light you use this winter...she's a female who will be heading into breeding season fun times ahead for everyone that being said, you want to extend her time in the dark to discourage her breeding instincts. So the winter is actually a good time to get her used to being covered for about 14 hours. You'll want to maintain that 14 hours of darkness going into spring to limit the breeding drive. She'll still have other things to contend with such as nesting behavior but light plays a big part it. So if you have to leave the house early in the morning for work, I would let her go to bed at 4pm and wake at 6am. I know you'll miss her a lot, but spoil her like crazy on the weekend. But keep the same sleep schedule on the weekend too.

But should we be concerned if that means Remy spends all of her weekday time inside her cage without out of cage time? If the sun goes down at 4pm, like Brian said, by the time we get home it will be pitch dark and she will be snoozing. It would be around this time, we take her out and spend time with her for an hour before bed. Of course, we still take her out in the morning for 45 minutes or so before we go to work, but wont she be even unhappier to be caged for all those hours in the darker months?

We have been sooooooo busy the past two weeks and only this past weekend Remy was able to be out of her cage for almost 5 days straight since we had a super long weekend, but the sun is going down earlier and earlier and on the weekdays. We dont think we will have another stretch of so many days off in a long time

[Skyes_crew]

Just increase her enrichment. Foraging...toys...order perches with bark that she can destroy. If you can't find any, ill mail some to you. We have them year round. It's definitely not ideal...but breeding season brings a whole new side out in a female and you don't want to mess with their sleep schedule.

[jmlw7]

Just increase her enrichment. Foraging...toys...order perches with bark that she can destroy. If you can't find any, ill mail some to you. We have them year round. It's definitely not ideal...but breeding season brings a whole new side out in a female and you don't want to mess with their sleep schedule.

I thought breeding season in the northeast US was in the spring/summer? If you are telling me the fall/winter is breeding season, then Remy will be acting weird all year round! (I pm'd you about the perches

[Skyes_crew]

Breeding season is mid winter into spring. Northeast US sees breeding signs as early as December. But usually around January.

[MissK]

This seems as good a spot as any to place this little comment, especially if it might give you guys any food for thought on Remy. I know you have more than one issue there to fix, and lights may not be at the top of the list anymore, but here are my thoughts.

BACKGOUND:
As you might know, I like to keep my bird on light timers to simulate the sun in the native range. You may or may not know that last year my bird exhibited a firm feeding behaviour for five months or so, and it caused me some distress. From the winter solstice (almost on the dot) until May-ish, he regurgitated for all his toys, bits of rope, and even the cage bars. Friends advised me to remove the toys, but it didn't help. When the toys went, he fed other toys. When those toys went, he fed structures in the cage. When those went, he fed the cage itself AND other pieces of food. It was ridiculous, not to mention wasteful, and I worried he might be shorting himself of food. I'm *glad* my insurmountable problem turned out to be Rocky feeding seeds to a Brussels Sprout, but I still don't like it.

NEW STRATEGY:
Now that Rocky and I have a year and a half together under our belts, and knowing he didn't feed stuff when I got him (mid April of that year), I suspect that possibly I made his lighting TOO natural. My theory is that, as noted above, it's pretty hard to not notice the sun going down. At best, I think supplemental lighting at night may just serve to extend the twilight, ie, the sleepy bedtime. Early morning lighting may better work *with* the sun rather than *against* it.

So now I'm going to purposefully attempt to manipulate the dawn. It is, upon reflection, more reasonable to bring the dawn earlier, as this is a situation of the world getting progressively lighter, which wakes everybody up. With my house lights, I hope to get a jump on the day.

In re-examining the details of sunrise and set, and day length, here in EAST COAST, USA, along with my calendar, I notice a couple of things. For those who want to follow along, find a nice chart of day length here:
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/a ... =-13&day=1
(1) The start of Rocky's feeding behaviour coincided with the winter solstice. This is the time when day length shifts from decreasing to increasing for the year.
(2) The end of Rocky's feeding behaviour was loosely correlated with the day length reaching 14 hours. (In the coming year this is May 4/5.)
(3) The end of August and beginning of September (this past week or so) mark the drop in day length (for us) under 14 hours.
(4) It is, I believe, the shortening days which tell the bird that breeding and nesting are approaching, as the subsequent lengthening days will trigger the breeding and nesting. You cannot have lengthening days (in our natural world) unless you have some shortened days first.
(5) At some point (beginning of April here) the day length naturally hits 13 hours. This means I will be manipulating my timers largely for no *day length* reason from that point until end of Summer. However, I think it's worth it to keep the bird in the habit of seeing the lights come on in the morning, and me in the habit of adjusting the timers.
(6) I don't want to mess with his molt, so I will leave in some variance in day length, which is to say, allowing Nature to take over day length from April to September. This is largely a trial situation.

PUTTING IT IN ACTION:
Starting today, I'm setting Rocky's timers to begin the dawn early, hopefully providing a more convincing 13 hour day length. I will be adjusting the timers a few minutes weekly, hoping to wake him gently increasingly early, to accommodate the sun going down earlier as the winter wears on. I will also start leaving the curtains open in the room. They have been shut on the South side during the hot part of the day so far, to help climate control. Also, for simplicity and maximum impact, I am going to stop simulating pre-dawn and twilight, and go straight to all lights on at once.

Again, for those who want to play along at home, I got a calendar, all the days on one long sheet. Consulting the website above, I marked every Sunday with the time that would be exactly 13 hours prior to sundown. The website has taken care of daylight savings time for you, so don't worry about that. That is the time I will be setting the first lights to come on each week.

Catch me next May to see how this went!

[Skyes_crew]

Ok...so help me here. We don't have daylight savings. Our days only lengthen and shorten by maybe an hour and a half either direction. I cover my birds at 8-8:30 at night. I wake them at 8:30-9 in the morning. Do they actually sleep till then?? I have no idea lol. But I can only shift their bedtime a little because in the winter the earliest the sun goes down is 6-6:30 and it wakes at 7-7:30. So our shortest winter day 11 1/2 hours. Wile our longest summer day is only 13 1/2 hours. With such a small difference how do I manipulate it? Skye is already becoming restless. She's pacing and greeting me in the morning with wings out and eyes pinned. I have to calm her before I try to feed her or she's lunging for me. Help MissK lol

[jmlw7]

MissK - If you can keep posting about how the light manipulation works over the next few days/weeks based on your observations... whenever we move into a house (hopefully by next year), it could be interesting to incorporate techniques of whatever you find.

Skye - Remy was trying to regurgitate to her reflection in the bathroom yesterday. I started singing a very loud song in the shower with lots of loud clapping to distract her, and she stopped, but it was obvious her restlessness was incredibly strong. No one warned us about all the hormonal stuff! We should have read more!

As for our lighting, we still have yet to make it to the store, just to get a timer for a standard living room lamp. Just to help with the complete darkness/complete sleep Remy may experience when the fall/winter sun goes down at 4-5pm. We want her to remain awake to at least spend an hour outside of her cage when we get home from work at 730pm every day. Last night, we actually came home to a pitch black house at 8pm. She was sound asleep on her food dish (which is new in itself as she has changed her sleep perch preference three nights ago), and she wanted to come out and hang out but by then her sleep was disrupted and the shower/mirror/screaming/regurgitating thing started so we didnt really need to question that behavior.

Anyway, we are just getting the timer to extend daylight during the fall/winter by a couple of hours only. At least for now, so MissK, I'll be following along

[MissK]

Josie, here's the thing -- I'm not sure what I will be able to note until Winter Solstice. Rocky did not display any notable hormonal behaviours last Fall. If you're going to try lights on a timer, I strongly suggest you alter day length by adjusting the dawn, not the sunset. If you have to go to bed earlier and get up earlier, well, give it a try. You can put your bedroom on a simulated dawn timer, too. And start today. Like, today.

Can you figure out when Remy started what you would say is end of Summer type hormonal behaviour? I don't know if increasing day length once those behaviours have begun would halt them (turn back the clock, so to speak) or move her forward to the Spring, internally.

A quick check shows that your days are actually slightly longer than mine, at this time. Your days slipped below 14 hours long on August 16th. Today your day length will be about 12.5 hours. It maxed out June 17-24 at 15 hours, 31 minutes. Mine was June 18-23, at 14 hours, 56 minutes. You slipped under 13 hours on September 6th. http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/a ... =-11&day=1 Minutes separate us now, but by 21 December, I'll have 35 minutes of day length on you. I think that's just trivia, though.

Melissa, your day length maxed out from June 12 - 28 at 13 hours 25 minutes (assuming you share day length with Honolulu). http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/a ... =-11&day=1 When did you say you realized your chick was a, um, Chick? I would suggest research the day length closely preceding that behaviour change and mark that as your minimum target. Your day length goes down to 10 hours 50 minutes before it starts to lengthen again on December 28. So your day length changes by about 2.5 hours. It's not as big a change as mine, but I suspect it's enough for birds to take note.

ACTUALLY, I think your day times most closely match my "native bird range" model of Dhaka, Bangledesh. They are maxed out June 20-22 at 13 hours 36 minutes. Their days begin to lengthen from 10 hours 40 minutes on December 28. This is a big reason I selected 13 hours as my target day length. I don't want to short the Rockstar any more on his sleep than I must. I am hoping that the natural extension beyond 13 hours that we get here (Maryland) from the Sun will give him the range of daylight he needs for molting.

It occurs to me that since you have both male and female Ringnecks, and you have a native type day length, YOU are in a position to report when various behaviours change. Your careful attention and reporting may well give us the information we need to plan day length sensibly, rather than me taking my best guess and tweaking things year by year. Could you try to do that, pretty please? I would appreciate it ever so much!

For female Ringneck hormonal attacks, I can only believe you need full fencing attire.

[Skyes_crew]

Ok cool, I can do that

Skye started her restlessness around the first week of September. 1st symptoms Lack of focus. Late afternoon contact calling. Chasing cyrano and hamlet. As of yesterday I was greeted by a crouching tiger with pinned eyes who lunged at me. Today I was nipped for the first time ever.

Now Skye is being paired to a turquoise blue this year. She will be going out into the aviary by the end of the month with the male. With her being outside I should be able to gather very accurate data on behaviors. Tell me exactly what you need. Be specific

[MissK]

OK, so let's have a look at day length for you preceding September.....
August 1 13:05
August 7 12:59
August 14 12:52
August 21 12:44
August 28 12:36
Sept 4 12:28

How are we going to interpret this data?
It is my suggestion that the triggers for the change in behaviour do not happen overnight, or else birds would get all screwed up by an overcast, rainy week. Also, humans are kinda dopey, and many times don't recognize (or remember exact timing of) the subtle beginnings of a new behaviour. So I would say that we should go back in time *at least*, let's say, 2 weeks or so, to look for seasonal behaviour triggers.

IF (big if) that is the case, looking at the 2-4 weeks preceding September 1, we see a decrease in day length of just about 21-32 minutes. I don't want to get superstitious about the magic number 13, but your day length slipped under 13 hours on August 6, and was only 13 hours 5 minutes on August 1. Just sayin'.

It would be really helpful if we could get a number of data points from others about when their females got girly and the day length at that time and in preceding weeks. Ellie, are you listening?

As for what observations you could make for us, I would say keep a calendar near the birds and just note the onset and development of behaviours right on the calendar, Once behaviour trends are noted, day length can be researched and added to the calendar. I'm a little sorry Skye will go out to the aviary, since that separates her from the conventional pet lifestyle. I'd be most interested in knowing timing of onset of seasonal restlessness (such as is going on now), interest in nest box, actual breeding and chick rearing, as well as onset and completion of molting. I kick myself for not having noted the termination of Rocky's regurgitation habit and the onset and termination of his molt. (Stoopid Human - kick, kick, kick.) You would think I would have made some note, being the geek I am.

That's about as specific as I can get just now. I don't know what else it would be helpful to look for. I think the goal is to determine what change in day length triggers what behaviours we would like to modify in pets.

As for me, I have pulled Rocky's day length out of the decline and put him on 13 hours. When I got up today he was busy playing with a toy, not fighting the Sandman on his perch like usual at that hour. Dogs are now snoozing on their pillow shelf because I quit the bed early and they have to follow me around. The Budgies are being So Noisy - Haha, that's the real reason Rocky can't sleep!!!!!!!! Maybe not, but Dr. Scott will Not Shut Up! Guess a Budgie post is in order. I have to get some tea; those sweet lil' Budgies are giving me a headache!

[Skyes_crew]

very specific...thank you

As for the magic #13... I found out I think the 7th of August that Skye was a female. Maybe the 6th. It was her odd behavior the week prior that prompted me to test her again. Hmmmm...you may be on to something here lol. She was still sweet if not a bit clingy. Not ok with me lol. I gave her more tree time and then she was ok. Late August into september we had a heat wave. It stayed in the 90's for about 4 weeks. Then the humid tropical rains started. That is what I believe brought on her latest attitude issues. By the end of October it should cool down. I won't speculate though, because we've had some trippy weather the last few years. Ill keep good notes.

I know you're probably sad to see her go out into the aviary. She will come back in after breeding season though. I truly believe she's meant for more than being frustrated and miserable every year. She's surrounded by male birds. And rather than have an accidental breeding between her and hamlet or Cyrano ill let her have her way in a safer environment. I gave this a lot of thought. It'll be cool to observe the outdoor behaviors in detail

[MissK]

Well, this looks like Trouble......

I was watching Rocky with his seashell this early morning, and it was great noisy fun. On closer inspection, I saw a WET SPOT inside the shell. Last week I noted a "dirty" shell, seemed to have residue inside, made me worry he had fed it grain/pellet mush and then cleaned it off. I'd made a note to curtail the warm mush feeding and keep an eye on the sugar. I also reduced the overall amount of 24/7 available seed supply.

When I spoke with Rocky about his shell, he suggested I should not be holding it. He also felt I should keep my mitts off his bead, AND his bit of string. I peeled a leaf off the Nappa Cabbage stub I gave him earlier and offered it. He nibbled a little, but desired me to drop it. Fortunately for me, Rocky only placed his open beak on my finger and closed it gently. He was only making a suggestion. I carried on a brief time with offering various things and blocking the beak.

If it is what I think it is, Rocky courting various objects, then this is a big, new development. I wonder if bringing the dawn early has thrust him forward into a false "late winter". That would be truly awful, and I imagine I would have to counter by either conceding defeat and letting him have Natural winter, or by increasing light further to bring him an artificial summer. I don't like either, but I feel it can't be healthy to rush summer when this summer is barely ending. I think I made the dawn TOO early, too big an increment of change at once.

A little background is this -
April 2012 Rocky comes to my house. He makes frequent, ongoing male displays. No regurgitation at all. I congratulate myself on bringing home such a lively and entertaining creature.
December 2012 Rocky begins regurgitating for stuff and doesn't stop till May 2013.
Spring/Summer 2013 At some point I notice he doesn't display frequently like he used to do. I miss it.
2nd week of September 2013 I make earlier Rocky's artificial dawn and Rocky appears to begin regurgitation.

So I guess I do have a change to report after all.

[Skyes_crew]

Ok...so take the same number of days that you altered the wake up time and leave them natural. And then report baseline results. Then go from there. If he continues regurgitation, then your artificial dawn had no bearing on his behavior. I've felt it since the beginning of September....I think we are in for an early breeding season, which means a light winter for you. Last year we had an early season too. We had babies in the nest second week of January. Check your local breeding results from last year.

Skye has become cage aggressive. I have to let her come out on her own now. When I feed I block her beak with the bowl. She won't return on her own anymore. Last night I went to place her in and she chomped down on my finger. Not hard enough to inflict damage, but enough for me to take notice of the sting. It's breaking my heart a bit to watch her become a bird I hardly know anymore. I know it's only temporary, but still. This is why I wanted male birds lol. She's fine with me when she's out of the cage. I have to refrain from petting her. So I tend to just let her ride around on me. I expect it to only get worse from here on out. She is now screaming all day long 30 minutes at a time.

On another note...hamlet has started some odd behaviors. He's yelling at his toys. It's too funny to watch him argue with bamboo

[MissK]

But I don't WANT a light winter! I have an inborn drive to shovel and sculpt snow! What about my pretty purple boots? And my orange plastic toboggan? And my best-snow-shovel-in-the-world? What about those sweet innocents, languishing unused?

[MissK]

OK, OK; I'm going to change the timers in the morning.

Poor little Skye.
Poor little you!

[jmlw7]

Skye has become cage aggressive. I have to let her come out on her own now. When I feed I block her beak with the bowl. She won't return on her own anymore. Last night I went to place her in and she chomped down on my finger. Not hard enough to inflict damage, but enough for me to take notice of the sting. It's breaking my heart a bit to watch her become a bird I hardly know anymore. I know it's only temporary, but still. This is why I wanted male birds lol. She's fine with me when she's out of the cage. I have to refrain from petting her. So I tend to just let her ride around on me. I expect it to only get worse from here on out. She is now screaming all day long 30 minutes at a time.

On another note...hamlet has started some odd behaviors. He's yelling at his toys. It's too funny to watch him argue with bamboo

Skye's behavior is extremely interesting! Who would have thought our girls would go through such personality changes!!

We still (this weekend I swear) need to get Remy a timer for the living room lights. It gets so dark so early now.

Melissa - where are you finding this stuff about breeding season dates? I have been googling and searching without luck.

If they say breeding season is shorter days, shouldnt we PROLONG the days to discourage breeding season? I first read longer sunlight hours encourage breeding and mating so put them to bed earlier to discourage it. But if breeding season is in the winter, with shorter daylight hours, what is the truth?

I have no clue.

[MissK]

As I understand it, the shortening days get them to start preparing for nesting season and the lengthening days get them to start the actual breeding and nesting. Thus, I think it is not entirely the actual length of the "shorter" or "longer" day, but that the longer follows the shorter.

Example: In the Canary keeper's world, the end of summer gets the male birds to sing - which is their way of attracting mates. We keep extra lights on when the season naturally shortens the day, so the bird will keep singing, since the song is the reason many people keep this type of bird. If the bird gets a mate (or thinks he has by us keeping one close by) then he quits singing and turns his efforts to nesting in late Winter or early Spring. . (This is why male canaries are kept out of close sight of each other. Each thinks he hears a rival and sings a lot. If he saw the other bird, he might possibly, possibly mistake him for a female, or possibly be intimidated by a rival too close to his space, and quit singing.) If he is allowed to nest, and even if he's not, the continuing progression of the year prompts him to stop nesting and start molting. He stops singing because he has no need to attract a mate and certainly doesn't want to attract a predator. Once he's done molting, then he looks all beautiful and ready to attract a mate. About this time Summer is ending and he starts singing as well. Thus completes the cycle. Females go through the same phases, but they don't sing, or don't sing as much. A lot is said about how female Canaries don't sing, but those who keep them say they just might sing, though not like the male.

[Skyes_crew]

In previous times my methods were to keep the birds on a strict year round schedule. No changes, no fluctuation. In theory a good idea maybe. But that theory was based on the example of an all male flock. This year missK and I are trying something different. We are trying to see how closely the day length times influence the actual breeding habits so that we can adjust our inside environments to match post breeding or pre breeding time frames. btw MissK...any progress on Rocky and his regurg with the new dawn?

You can look on the Internet until your head explodes and you won't find exact breeding information for ringnecks in the states or anywhere else for that matter. Basically because these birds breed true to season and breeders know that. The exact times vary by location. For me where our temperatures are warm year round, the slight fluctuation in December brings on mating which is mid winter. For you where it is colder, mid winter will be a time for courting, and those first few hints of spring will bring on mating. That's why when people ask when will my bird have his first big molt I say somewhere between 12-15 months because it goes by your winter length.

[MissK]

btw MissK...any progress on Rocky and his regurg with the new dawn?

I'm awake! That wasn't me! Ahhhh.... The dog ate my homework!

I just cut his seed because I was lazy at the moment. I haven't seen any seed cement, though. He is kinda tetchy about his stuff, though. Boo Boo's having some trouble and I gave her all my attention. I'll try to get on that in the morning.

You can look on the Internet until your head explodes

I think I've done that!

[Skyes_crew]

You're truckin along pretty good with no head

[Skyes_crew]

Reporting in for Skye, Captain...

Today, 22 of September. Observed Skye courting Cyrano while playing on their tree. Eyes pinned, wings out slightly, new call sequence I haven't heard before. Series of chirps and then her contact call. She will not let me approach her in the tree anymore. I get bit for my efforts. I must entice her to the ground with a peanut and then step her up. One more week and then she will go into the outdoor aviary. I have chosen a 6 year old male for her to "show her the ropes".

[InTheAir]

Missk. Do you think this light cycle will have any effect on Rocky's moult?
I'm wondering if skipping the breeding season would fail to trigger the next moult or cause some inconsistencies in it?

[MissK]

The short answer is "I hope not" because I am expecting to let him return to a normal day length in late Spring. That is to say, when day length naturally increases to meet the artificial amount and then exceed it, I plan to allow that to happen for him. In so doing, I hope to trigger a normal molt.

The long answer follows: This is a concern of mine, and also the reason I did not keep the daylight at the maximum summer amount. We know that keeping a bird with too much light will keep it in a light molt all the time. I don't want that. By the same token, I don't want to prevent the molt, which I feel would be almost as bad.

Honestly, I'm just feeling this out and testing theory. I don't want to prevent Rocky from having a "season" altogether - I am hoping to just dial it back a notch so he won't feed stuff for half the year. Right now I have seen traces of pellet mush on two seashells and nothing else. He shows some possessiveness about his toys, and readily makes a move to display the wings or "sing" (really more of a "chortle"...) for any object I introduce in front of him, including food or my fingers holding a single millet seed. These behaviours are all easily acceptable to me. It's the cementing everything in sight with seed spew that bothers me.

HOWEVER, and this is significant, I don't know if it's possible to kind of surf the edge of breeding season, to allow him to have a little fluctuation without going whole hog. It could well turn out to be an all or nothing situation. Because the day length varies comparatively so much less in the native range, I think slight differences are likely to be effective at influencing hormonal change. It could turn out that any fluctuation of a certain duration will affect hormones and behaviour, and if that's the case, I think it would doom the entire effort. I believe it is more important to have a normal molt than it is to circumvent normal hormonal urges.

And there may be another situation on layaway - Even if I am successful *this year*, will he acclimatize himself to the new day length situation, and respond to increasingly subtle differences in day length in the future? Or will it be possible to just tweak day length from September to June to manage breeding hormones and yet allow a normal molt? That last case is what I'm hoping for.

[jmlw7]

We bought an outdoor timer for our indoor accent light that is placed close to a white wall in our living room - with it set to turn on at 530pm and off at 830pm when we should be there using brighter lights.

Its been going for two days and so far so good. When we come home at 730pm, its pitch dark now and with the light going on at 530pm before the sun starts going down, Remy has been happily chirping in anticipation to come out of her cage when we get home. Before, she was already snoozing. So at least she is able to spend an hour with us outside of her cage until bedtime.

This is still messing with the internal snoozing clock of going to sleep earlier when the sun goes down right? Hopefully this wont affect her behavior too much. Thus far, she seems to be screaming a little less... maybe less grumpy?

[MissK]

Keep us posted!

[MissK]

Update on Rocky's lighting ~

I'm turning them all off and going to natural lighting alone. It's Fall in my area right now. Natural day length is 10 hours and 20 minutes - a significant decrease all at once for the birds.

We'll see how it pans out!