Night Frights

[Saerphe]

Over the past week and a half or so of having the budgies in my room I've noticed they sometimes have night frights. Ollie's already broken a blood feather once from waking up frightened at night. I've been trying to cover their cage, but they're afraid of the cover.

Is there a good way to prevent them from having night frights? The last thing I want is to wake up and find one of them hurt, or worse.

[Michael]

Seems like some night frights are inevitable like the ones caused by the bird itself like losing grip and falling off a perch at night. But other ones we can try to prevent. I cover my parrots' cages at night with a black sheet, turn the lights off, keep the blinds closed on windows, and have a little LED night light near their cages. I leave a small opening on the side of the cage facing the wall with the night light so they have a bare minimum amount of light while maintaining relative darkness. The sheet absorbs light, draft, and sound so it's a good way to keep them safe at night. Obviously avoid making loud or sudden noises while they are asleep but it seems that the night frights can come from the smallest and randomest of things.

[CheekyandMalolo]

I find with my Tiel that has night frights the only way to stop them was to give her as much light as possible at night, at my house we have big bay windows and the moon shines in which is enough for her. When she lived with my bf the moon couldn't get in and even with the blinds open she couldn't cope, we ended up leaving a lamp on in the opposite corner of the room and the blind open, and no blanky over her. Even then she wouldn't cope some nights and you'd end up with a screaming yellow feather duster thrashing on ther floor of her cage. We found the only thing that stopped Mali in the middle of a night fright was tojust grab her and hold her tight and turn the light on ASAP!
Try a bunch of different things, but trial them over 4-5 nights, if there's no improvement, try something else. Heck I've tried rocking and singing to Mali like a baby to try and settle her down! You feel just a little silly when you're bf's house mate find you walking around the room singing and swaying to your bird cradled in your arms. Some days I think he might question my sanity just slightly.

[Saerphe]

Thanks for the help, everyone! The other night I heard someone climbing around on the bars in the dark, so I had to turn my light back on and shoo Ollie back on his perch. I suspect this is the cause of the night frights: He jumps on the bars, can't find his way back to the perch in the dark and then falls off the bars after a while when he gets tired.

They haven't had a problem since Dad put the curtains up in my room, so hopefully they won't have any more night frights.

[laducockatiel]

Yes me too, but I leave a little gap at the front so the bird can get just enough light to see where he is going in case he wants to eat.when I first got my bird, I forgot to cover it and he saw headlights and fell off his perch so my mum calmed him downluckily