need help amazon AGGRESSION !! PLEASE

[Chantilly]

Thankyou both for the replies, sorry for getting back to this so late! I am not sure Paj, In general they are up at 7, an hour after sunnup and down at 7, an hour after sundown. This week I have not been getting them up till 8 though as I have a cold that is knocking me out- should be back to normal soon though. Any thoughts are welcome in regards to why they are so hormonal.
Also: do male parrots spray sperm when masturbating? -Tilly will sit in my palm and do her buissness for 4-5 minutes straight, and I am not sure if my palm is sweaty after or the other.

[Pajarita]

As far as I can tell, both males and females produce some sort of liquid when they masturbate.

Going by the schedule you gave us, they are getting 12 hours of light and 12 of dark and, as we all know, birds can and will produce sexual hormones with this schedule. But I am also not clear on the twilight... are they exposed to it fully (at least, 1.5 hours) without any interference from artificial lights? Because, as you know, that is what actually makes the trick.

[Chantilly]

They have natural light coming from four windows which are open(still has flyscreen which supposedbly dilutes light by 40% in the surrounding area, but the room is still somewhat dim so they also get artificial lighting, every Sunday morning thery are taken outside into full sun for 2 hours, other than that I take their cages to the open windows (still has flyscreen) for about an hour a week.
So all up they get about 3 hours total narural light a week.
I take it 1.5 hours of full light was daily? If so I will sort things out better and get into a good routine of taking them outsid regularly, Thankyou again Pajarita

[Wolf]

I could be wrong but is seems to me that this may not have been explained adequately.

You know that birds are photoperiodic and that this is a major factor in their hormonal balance especially as pertains to their mating drive. You know that this works through the measurement of light and dark periods. So in many respects it functions like a stop watch and alternately times the daylight period and the night time period. But the two twilight periods are the off/on button. They work together to change the internal clock so that it times the light period and the dark period. This means for the internal biological clock to be accurate the bird must be exposed to the predawn and dawn period when the sky first begins to lighten up and then it must be exposed to the dusk to full dark period in the evening for it to function properly. This exposure needs to occur without the interference of any artificial lighting.

Does this help?

[Pajarita]

Exactly! The birds have to be exposed to dawn (near a window without curtains, shades, etc) WITHOUT any artificial lights on inside the house or outside if it shines through the window (this light turns 'on' the stop watch). Then, when you see the sun out in the sky and sunrays coming in through the window and shining down on the floor, you can turn on the artificial lights. You will keep these artificial lights on (which should be a good quality full spectrum of the right specifications) until you see the sun halfway down the horizon in the afternoon when you turn off the artificial lights and allow the light of dusk coming in through the windows (this light will turn 'off' the stop watch marking the number of hours in between as 'daylight hours'). Once it's night and dark (watch out for the street lamps shining through the windows) and the bird is fast asleep, you can cover the cage with a black-out material if you need to turn on the artificial light in the room (but make sure the cage is completely covered and no light is shining in).

[Chantilly]

Sorry for getting back to this so late, and thankyou. I have been radeing all the posts just not had time to reply
I have changed the light scheduale since reading this post 4 days ago:
Now they currentley get uncovered, and then I open blinds to the sun coming through the window when it is very very bad dim light, later on in the day if I have to shut a blind (If me and my brother are playing outside with tennis rackets it scares them to deaf) I turn on the lights, which are now turned of before the sun begins to go down and then they get it until dark and I cover them.

I can not uncover their cages and open the blinds for them while it is fully dark as anywhere between 6-6.30 as the sun starts to come up we get the most feeezing temperatures of the day (2-3°C) and the cool air comes straight through the glass windows and freezes everyone, but I can open it at 7 (which is now only 1/2 after the sun begins to rise so it is still very dim lighting as the sun has pretty much only just started to come above the trees). They can get the full sun going down though as it is still fairly warm at the time being.

Please do let me know if there is a problem in this current 'plan', and sorry if my typing is a muddle (im so tired at the moment, and my head is refusing to work so I am having to really think about what I am typing, *facepalm*) once again much thankyous

[Pajarita]

Well, the thing is that they 'on' light happens BEFORE the sun actually comes up and immediately after so if you are waiting for the sun to come up over the trees to open the shades, they are not getting the dawn benefit. Cold is a problem but, although people usually think this, a cage covering does not help the bird at all to conserve heat (their bodies are too small to produce enough heat to actually change the temperature inside the cage) so the only real solution is to keep either the room warm or put something right under the cages like a space heater or a heating pad. But, do you have a thermometer that you can put in the room next to the cages to see if it really gets that cold? Because, as long as it doesn't go under 60, it should be OK...

[Chantilly]

Well, the thing is that they 'on' light happens BEFORE the sun actually comes up and immediately after so if you are waiting for the sun to come up over the trees to open the shades, they are not getting the dawn benefit. Cold is a problem but, although people usually think this, a cage covering does not help the bird at all to conserve heat (their bodies are too small to produce enough heat to actually change the temperature inside the cage) so the only real solution is to keep either the room warm or put something right under the cages like a space heater or a heating pad. But, do you have a thermometer that you can put in the room next to the cages to see if it really gets that cold? Because, as long as it doesn't go under 60, it should be OK...

Ahh alright! Thankyou Paj, I will definately fix this up then. We dont have a thermometer, but when we open the blind you can feel the cold air coming through the glass and going through all the rooms. Brrrr

[Pajarita]

Have you tried those plastic sheets you 'glue' to all four sides of the windows? It's a thick sheet of plastic which sides you 'press' into this two-sided glue strip (previously installed all around the window) as you remove the backing of said strip. Like this: http://www.todayshomeowner.com/video/ho ... tion-kits/

They really work VERY well! I use them in the canary room because, originally, this was a mud room so it has no radiator and the window allows A LOT of cold to come in but with the plastic sheeting and a space heater, the problem was solved.

[Bird woman]

You guys watch out for those space heaters !!! A lot of them have Teflon coating on the elements just like hair dryers. BW (good alternative self contained oil radiator space heaters.) BW