Life change for 'too

[Lori]

Paj, I am paying VERY close attention to this Solar schedule that I am just learning about here. Reading everything I can. AND you are the only person who has ever told me they have 2 hormonal seasons a year! which now makes complete since to me, OMG it has just this second dawned on me I have never been able to figure out When she is going to lay eggs, I mean I never know in which months this occurs because its never the same is this because her Solar light is out of whack? Or that sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn't?
Now for the Solar light Schedule for Dummies
I live in Northern California. Scooter gets up from a Dark Cage at 6 am, since the weather is nice all the windows are open so she sees its morning. She then goes to bed at 8pm, now at this time of year its not dark, but she is tired and wants to go to bed, and after a long day with her I"M ready for her to go to bed. Her room is dark and her cage is covered so its now dark. This is what we have done for years. Is this wrong? I can't believe that after all these years with her that I can be so ignorant of her needs. I guess we just fall into a 'life' schedule, she is just part of the family/flock and she does what we all do.

[Wolf]

There have been a lot of changes between what was commonly done and what we are now learning. This is because until parrots as an industry kicked into gear no research was done as no one would pay for it.
I would hold off on covering his cage until it is full dark so that he is exposed to dusk as well, which ends at full dark.

[Lori]

Thanks Wolf,
I will leave the front curtain open till dark. I'm going to work on this Solar and her diet much more and see if the picking stops.

[Pajarita]

Lori, don't feel bad about anything you could have done that you are only now learning it was wrong. Anybody who had parrots for many years has gone through the same thing because we simply did not know enough about birds. I know I used to do all kinds of terrible things, myself - from diet to handling to housing to bedding - sheesh, the list of my mistakes is a mile long!

Wolf is correct. The trick is to expose them to dawn and dusk without any artificial lights on and to allow them to go to sleep naturally when night falls -after the bird is asleep, you can cover the cage with a black-out material if there is light coming in from a street lamp or from another room (I do that with my cardinals in the living room because they are next to a window to the front garden and there is a street lamp across the street).

And yes, it is the fact that her endocrine system is out of whack that makes her lay any time of the year. Once she is back in tune with the seasons, she will become broody in early spring and late summer but she might not lay every time and, in time, she might not lay at all.

[Wolf]

There is so much new information that we now have that was not available 20 years ago and the rate of researching parrots is increasing to such an extent that I wonder how much we do now will be wrong in 5 years or 10 years. There is no doubt that we are all still doing things wrong or that we will be able to improve upon soon.

[Pajarita]

I bet you pellets will be one of those things people will change their mind about...