Sleep for the night

[Aksarben]

I have read, on some internet links, that it is good for a Budgie/Parakeet to get around 10 to 12 hours of good sleep. I am swapping the lavender blanket I have over our 2 Budgies for the black one on the Zebra Finches. The finches are in the living room and in the evening it is considerably darker where they are at. The Budgies are here in the kitchen with me, and I generally go to bed around 9 to 10, way past sunset.
Would black out material be of any help? Covering provides both extra protection from the drafts, darkness, and some sound deadening. One must be careful not to overthink these things....
If interested, this is a link talking about Budgie sleeping that I did find.

Also, is there a way to define what font and size "MY" message texts are in a more permanent way? I have severe vision issues and hard to see smaller type.

 

[Ripshod]

Controlling the daylight hours is a great way of controlling the seasons for our budgies. In spring, when the days start getting longer the urge to breed is triggered. That's the only reason I see for controlling the light for our feathered friends. My flock get to experience the full seasonal changes and have shown no interest in making babies as yet.

Also, is there a way to define what font and size "MY" message texts are in a more permanent way? I have severe vision issues and hard to see smaller type.

With both Chrome and Firefox if you hold down ctrl and tap the + key all the text on a Web page will grow for you. The - key does the opposite.

 

[Aksarben]

Do Parakeets Sleep A Lot? - Neeness This is the link I forgot to put in above. I would edit if I could.

 

[Aksarben]

With both Chrome and Firefox if you hold down ctrl and tap the + key all the text on a Web page will grow for you. The - key does the opposite.

Thanks!! I knew about the font size with Firefox, but I was just wondering if I could change it for in this forum, to stay that way.

 

[GreenThing]

I got blackout curtains for my windows when it started getting light at 7am here, because my latest work nights get me home at 9:15pm, so I can't put them to bed earlier than 8:30pm without creating a very inconsistent schedule. It helped, but the minute Merlin notices a change in the light he's up and going (I don't know if it is normal for a bird, but Percy LIKES going to bed and LIKES sleeping in the morning, so he'd probably sleep longer without Merlin's antics waking him up!). On really cloudy weekends, sometimes we all sleep in until 10!

As for the cover, let them tell you if they like it-- some budgies don't like too much dark and will be more liable to have night frights. Do they start to visibly settle down before you leave the kitchen? I know some budgies will sleep through a little quiet bustle.

 

[Aksarben]

Do they start to visibly settle down before you leave the kitchen?

They pretty much start quieting down around 6:30 , but the pet store was open until 8:00 so not sure about their sleep schedule. I've got the dark blanket swapped from the Finch cage, so will see how that goes.
I can see wild Budgiergars in Austraily lining the bush trees and vegetation, looking for peaceful night sleep. I don't know if there are nocturnal predators there in Australia, but birds here, except for owls, night hawks (which are not hawks) are active in the evening and night hours; all roost and sleep at nightfall. Even the Blue Jays we see in the winter, perch and sleep though the night. The highest perches equate to the most safety.

Too much light, or rather, too long of a light period can induce egg laying. I've raised chickens here and back in Nebraska and if you want eggs in the winter, you better set up a light on a timer in the coop. Birds are normally diurnal, meaning day active, night sleep, and the length of day plays an important role for both migration, and knowing when it is time to raise chicks. However, Budgerigars also are influence by how much rain and water is available. You can't raise chicks if it is in a drought area, even if there is adequate sunlight. Saw that in the BBC video.

 

[GreenThing]

One of the most fascinating things about budgies is their adaptability-- I would be interested to know how their brains account for abundance of food and water but no other signals for changing seasons. Maybe that is why they seems inconsistently hormonal in captivity (like Ripshod's chill bunch vs. examples I've seen here that become very stimulated even with 12 hours darkness). Without the constancy of their environment, they must be individually responding to different things.

Here in SoFla we can't even call raccoons crepuscular, anymore-- the eternal daytime of city and suburban lights has changed even wild animals' behaviors!

So interesting that domestic chickens are still so responsive to those environmental triggers... I wonder if that's an issue here in Florida or if it is the same as with bees-- just keep laying with no pause.

 

[Aksarben]

So interesting that domestic chickens are still so responsive to those environmental triggers... I wonder if that's an issue here in Florida or if it is the same as with bees-- just keep laying with no pause.

If you didn't want to gather chicken eggs in the frigid cold of Nebraska, just don't give the chickens artifical light. They stop laying. Not sure you meant "honeybees" when you said "bees" or referred to Budgies.
See the thread about BBC Budgies I posted above. They seems to respond more to abundant food and water more than to day length.

 

[AussieBird]

@Aksarben

 

[Aksarben]

@Aksarben

Many thanks!! BTW in closet is a Mago Didgeridoo, from Northern Arnhamland. (probably spelled that wrong).

 

[GreenThing]

If you didn't want to gather chicken eggs in the frigid cold of Nebraska, just don't give the chickens artifical light. They stop laying. Not sure you meant "honeybees" when you said "bees" or referred to Budgies.
See the thread about BBC Budgies I posted above. They seems to respond more to abundant food and water more than to day length.

I did mean honey bees! They have adaptations to survive long winters, but simply skip that entire process in Florida, with apparently no adverse effects. Highly adaptable species of all kinds are interesting to me.

It's interesting, because I have rarely seen diet control suggested as a method for managing hormones (possibly because it is more dangerous and would be trickier to teach most owners than simply turning the lights off earlier). I do love that doc-- it's one of the first things I watched before bringing my budgies home. There aren't enough wild budgie docs!

 

[Aksarben]

I did mean honey bees! They have adaptations to survive long winters,

Some years ago, after working for Boeing in Seattle as a machinist, I moved back to my home County of Dawes, in NW Nebraska to become a commercial bee keeper. Did you know that honeybees see ultraviolet as a color? They can navigate using wind and the sun, even on overcast days, and that yellow dandelion is not yellow to them. They do not see red colors, though, so their color spectrum shifted. In the fall of the year they kick out the males (Drones) from the hive and don't let them back in. Drones are helpless males that do not feed themselves nectar, but get fed only what honeybee workers give them. They are allowed into any hive, different from other worker bees in that they will only be accepted into their own hive... with some exceptions. Drones are flying gamuts, they only have 1/2 set of chromosones, and are created by the queen when she lays an infertile egg. They serve no purpose in the hive in winter as the only are there to impregnate a virgin queen in the spring/summer. So, in winter they simply die off, and no drones rare found in the hive in winter. The Queen honeybee also does not lay eggs in the winter. Larva honeybees need both nectar and pollen (protein) to grow. They have no pollen source in Nebraska in winter. In Florida, and southern states - Mexico - they do. A fully developed female (egg is fertilized) can develop into a Queen, whereas a underdeveloped female (also a fertilized egg) will only develop into a worker, unable to breed, and hence unable to produce female offspring. They "can" lay eggs but they would only develop into a drone (male)
Well enough on the birds and bees... lol

As far as diet control, you may be right. However, there lies a concern and risk in how much of what a budgie will eat to maintain, and there are simply o studies done to give weight to how much Budgerigars eat in the wild for balance of calorie intake, and calories burned, either in activity and includes metabolism. Obviously, they use that trigger in the wilds of Australia to their advantage. All I know is that song birds here in Michigan, and elsewhere use sun length to decide to raise chicks, as those times (sun length) also correlates to warm enough temperatures for food sources and that the nest will sustain reasonable warmth while parent is away foraging for the chicks.

 

[Lori D Pert]

As for the cover, let them tell you if they like it-- some budgies don't like too much dark and will be more liable to have night frights.

This. Just be sure that blackout isn't complete blackout. I've seen more than a few budgies fly haphazardly into cage bars (some injuring themselves) because they could not see their envirornment well enough. Ensure there is at least a nightlight.

 

[Aksarben]

This little scientific article discusses the "strictly diurnal' Budgerigar - meaning, in short, " I sleep at night and am active during daylight hours" I would imagine that caged birds, have to put up with movies, TV, radio, sounds that wake and disturb them... and probably not a choice "dark and quite" night, for the majority of circumstances, but there are always those that go that extra mile. oh yea... article Luminance-dependence of spatial vision in budgerigars (Melopsittacus undulatus) and Bourke's parrots (Neopsephotus bourkii) - PubMed

 

[Aksarben]

Since I started weaning them toward Pellets, this concept of taking out the food at night at covering, and returning after uncovering in the AM has helped tremendously in Pellet conversion!! I started by putting Roudybush only in the feed dish and feeding seeds + pellets , by hand, in the morning, noon and afternoon some Roudybush in my hand mixed with seed They gingerly ate. I put 20.000 g (I have a milligram scale) of pellets in the dish. At first it was only about .8 g to 1.5 g gone out of the dish. Yesterday I saw both birds eating the pellets out of the food container. Lat night the weight of pellets was only 9 grams left out of 20.000 g. Quite a noticeable difference. This evening, it appears more pellets have been eaten, (after being brought back up to 20.000 and I still give pellets with a sprinkling of seeds off and on during the day. So in about 5 days they are pretty much eating Roudybush pellets. I have some Lafeber pellets in the other container and each night at weighting, it still is about the same 20.00 grams. They really prefer Roudybush I guess. Will have to take some of those Lafeber pellets and put in my hand and mix with seed and see hot that goes with them.