I've always felt that there was something intrinsically wrong with the statement that bigger birds would always attack little birds because, in nature, you don't find just one species occupying a territory, it's always lots of them sharing so, if it works in nature, why couldn't it work in our homes?


Please use caution with trying to put small birds and large birds together.Just yesterday I got a call from a women frantic,that her Cockatoo got ahold of her conure and killed him,These birds were housed in the same room together. This is one of several cases I have heard about. It is much different in the wild,they have wide open spaces and there is not as much of a territory problem,When in our homes they are confined to much smaller areas,This is why we get cage aggression etc.. I would never recomend small and large birds housed in the same room together.

Beatriz, other than to reply to my post, I really don't understand your point other than to "share" all the information you have read and to debate my use of the word "STUDY".

Whether Mr Thrush considers himself a "scientist" and by extension his "STUDIES" to be "SCIENTIFIC" is up to him to define and his fellow "SCIENTISTS" which I am not. But he is more a "SCIENTIST" than me.

I'm sure he'd be glad to provide his academic credentials to anyone who cares.

QUOTE:

Camille, actually the only "study" that's been done is the one that I've referenced before by Patrick Thrush on the google for "Birds and Lighting". In that study he says not closer than 2 feet and between 2 and 4 feet.

[Also he only studied florescent tubes nothing compact. I use the tubes like you do. My birds hate the compact florescents. After one hour they go to extreme means to hide from them. Last time I saw, the Featherbrite compact flor was only CRI 91 which isnt enough anyway according to Thrush.]

ENDQUOTE

See, now, the quotation marks are there for a reason. They are to infer that the word "STUDY" is loosely stated.

If your point is that you chose to use compact florescents in your room and feel my post was a challenge to you, it wasn't. If you want to present other "STUDIES" please do.

Another example would be someone who introduces one Macaw into a room of powder birds. Is there a "STUDY" on that? Perhaps not. But there's enought to go on with various "studies" to question the wisdom of such a decision.

Meanwhile, my post was an attempt at subtlety so that Camille would move the light further than 2 feet from Ollie without hurting her feelings. I could care less who thinks what about lighting, I just wanted Ollie to not get fried or blinded by the light.

Cindy, I was responding to your posting:

"[i]Oh really? Thank you for explaning what your opinion of the word "scientific" is however Mr Thrush in his publication of 1999 chose to call it a study, therefore it's good enough for me"

explaining that it is not just 'my' opinion of the word scientific. I have no problem with Mr. Thrush or you calling it a study but whatever we call it, it is still a compilation of information from breeders describing their own methods. Ergo, in my opinion (and I am sorry I offended you so just by disagreeing with you), one can use the two feet distance as a reference but not as something that was found to be correct based on scientific experimentation.

I think Mr. Thrush did a great job on the 'study' but after all, he is a graduate in sociology and psychology; he has no formal studies on anything to do with light or birds; he never wrote anything else on any other avian subject that I could find and, furthermore, his personal experience with birds is limited to one conure. So, simply put, the way I see it, the two feet could be right or it could be wrong. Personally, I would not put any light shining on a bird for hours at a time even at two feet away.

As to the 'macaw in a room full of powder birds study' reference, I can't figure out what this has to do with the subject unless you are just using sarcasm again in an effort to impugn my knowledge of birds or my husbandry and, if that is the case, you are welcome to it with my blessings. If you want to know why or how this came to be, just ask me.

To Beatriz and company, greetings! Although I will do a separate introduction on a new thread, I felt that I should respond to this one as I seem to be a major part of the discussion!

As Beatriz notes, my investigations into artificial lighting for birds began in 1998 when a single juvenile conure landed in our back yard. Florida has many such feral populations of exotic birds. Looking to add a light solution to his cage area, I discovered that very little existed that was pertinent to caged birds--rather a recycling of information that applied to reptile keeping. The term "full spectrum lighting" was not in the vocabulary of the bird keeper at that time.

This began a review of all the academic and clinical literature that was available on avian photoperiod, its effect on metabolism, and the visual perception of our various species of fids. It is interesting to note that no combined research concerning artificial light and captive birds had been done--with the exception of the poultry industry. Even more revealing is that with the exception of my early work, none has been done to date.

Although my highest academic credentials are in the social sciences, my career experiences of more than 20 years prior were in technical and medical fields. The survey I conducted was comprised of approximately one-third breeders, and the remainder bird owners. Its purpose and result were to determine who was using what technologies to provide lighting for their feathered charges--for what purpose and what perceived results.

The survey tool was carefully constructed, and the results analyzed in SPSS. Over one hundred responses had to be discarded due to improper or insufficient information. The remaining sample size is statistically representative of the avian community--for the time and within the limitations of what was asked. In the very near future I plan on repeating the survey (and several others) in a web based format.

As to how many birds I personally owned, that is immaterial. Where I lived at the time on the West Coast of Florida, I had direct access to a formidable number of owners and breeders--providing a perfect informal laboratory for experimentation and observation. Devices themselves are easily analyzed with the proper equipment on the bench, as their behavior does not change when their use location does!

The 2-4 foot "suggestion" comes directly from the characteristics of fluorescent tubes. For a four foot tube less than 2 feet saturates too much light into the bird area, and is far too easy for a bird to reach and experience some sort of misfortune... Over 4 feet pushes the lamp to a distance that any UVB emitted by the light is scattered before it even reaches the bird.

With proper diet and environment, considerations of vitamin D metabolism through UV synthesis are immaterial. The real value of high quality artificial lighting in your bird's area are more to be had in improving his visual range within the cage (interior, toys, etcetera) and regulating the overall metabolism. Quality lighting can also help eliminate or prevent a wide variety of behavioral problems--exactly the same as has been positively identified for our human environment.

I dropped out of the avicultural community some years back due to other obligations and certain personalities within the groups at the time. The last few years I have been working on a new, avian specific lighting solution--lamps and fixtures. This product line will be launched in about a week.

The Birds & Lighting website is also being updated and moved to its own domain. This work is going a little more slowly as my main priority right now is to bring the SpectraBird product line to market.

Cheers,

Patrick Thrush

Patrick, thanks so much for your informational post. I look forward to checking out your new Spectrabird product line about to come available.