Hello

[Pajarita]

What you can do is turn off the artificial lights when the sun is halfway down to the horizon, feed him dinner, and, after it turned dark and he is asleep, cover his cage with a black-out material -just make sure there is no light 'sneaking' in from the bottom. You can watch your TV in there after that as long as you keep the volume kind of low (parrots get used to the normal noises in a household and, like babies, learn to go to sleep with them in the background).

BTW, it was the same thing with dogs and cats and every other animal we have domesticated... we thought we knew the right way of caring for them but we now realize that we did not!

[Wolf]

I hear you about the horse industry, I spent many years training horses as well as breeding them.

I feed all of my birds gloop as mentioned by Pajarita. Gloop and fresh fruits and vegetables are the main part of their diets and They get both of these foods for breakfast and for all day long and then I feed a seed mix in the evenings for dinner with some tree nuts added, depending on the species of parrot. I also use nuts for treats. I do not feed pellets for several reasons one of which is the amount of soy and soy products used in most of them, I have a hard enough time finding seed mixes without soy or sunflower seeds as it is. I hope that this will help you to find what you want to feed your bird.

[Swannranch]

Okay, I got most of the things I need at the.grocery store, Yeah! Still heading to Ft. Myers tomorrow unless the Hurricane makes another move west. Then everything going will go on hold until after the hurricane. We started the light issue yesterday as far as the Blinds being open. I will have.to look into the light bulbs.
I am an artist by trade and work primarily in Graphite and Charcoal. Because of the glare of some lights, IN the family room, The lights I do have are kind of expensive lights that are supposed to mimic daylight. Most artifical light is a.problem sometimes, so In that area of the house it's off more than on. His cage is next to my drawing table. Inhave.no idea about the numbers you mentioned, but I'll be.looking them up.
I'm opening the Blinds tonight (no outside lighting).
Continued Thanks!! I'm getting kind of excited and trying not to get too overwhelmed. I started adding some ofnthe.new.things.to his food today but will go over everything tomorrow.
The vet search is on, but may have.to wait until we know where the storm is going.
If I have.to bug out he will go to my son's house, but talk about screwing up a new schedule! At least his diet will be better before then.

[Wolf]

If he was eating a seed mix up until now, he will probably take to the new seed mix right away, if you got him a seed mix, but here is the thing about changing his diet. If he has not had a food item before now it will take some time to change his diet as he will mot recognize the new things as food. In one way this is a good thing as it is stressful on their digestive system to change their diet too quickly, just as it is with ours. It can also be a royal pain in the neck as you will have to teach him that the new foods are food.

There is a time period in their lives that they are most receptive to learning about what foods to eat and it occurs shortly after fledging, it is during this period in their lives that their parents would have taught them what their food looks like, how to find the foods as well as learning to eat these new foods. It is the rare breeder that will wean the bird either properly or to the right foods that it is going to need to remain healthy for its lifetime, they leave this up to the person who first buys the bird. One of the biggest issues about this is that the breeders and pet stores always seem to fail to inform the prospective new owner about this as well as several other very important factors in the life cycle and care of the bird, they are more interested in making a sale, than in the well being of the bird. It is why many bird people do not like breeders or pet stores. Of course there are also other reasons for this as well.

If you need any help with changing your bird to a healthier diet, we will be happy to assist you.

I do not know what the specifications for the full spectrum lights that you are using for your art work, but there should be something about it in the paperwork that came with the bulbs or it could be printed on the base of the bulbs, however some of them just give you the bulbs wattage on the bulb. My Lady works at an art supply place so if I know which bulbs you have I may be able to get the CRI and K Temp of them without too much difficulty.

We always worry about people using the wrong full spectrum bulbs as they can have some very bad effects on our birds if they are of the wrong CRI and K Temp or if they produce too much UVa or b. These effects can range from severe burns to the birds body to blindness. Some manufactures have marketed full spectrum bulbs intended for reptiles as suitable for birds by simply changing the packaging and the results of this practice have been disasterous for the birds exposed to them. If you get your full spectrum bulbs based on the requirements for your bird, you should not have any problem using them for your artwork as well, but I can't say that the ones designed just for artwork would be the same as the ones required for the bird. That is the reason for our specifying the correct CRI and K Temp.

[Swannranch]

Have not found a vet yet, and working on the lights today. Because I know with horses and dogs, a sudden change in diet can be worse than the problem you start with, the light is the only thing I really changed immediately (outside light) Wow, at 7:45 he loves that sun time.
I'm looking for a dark black out fabric today.

I got a lot of grains and frozen and fresh vegitables. I already had Flax seeds, food grade, that I feed my horses and I put them in the dog food. Didn't know Jingles would benefit too.
I got the grains and lentis listed on one of the pages for gloop but have not started that yet.

What I did is took his regular feed and removed by hand, as many sun flower seeds as I could but not all. I added some pumpkin seeds and flax seeds...not a lot, just a few.

Then I had a bowl of zuccini, carrots and yellow squash very lightly cooked. After about an hour, I took that out and left him with his normal feed with a few pieces of vegis and (and sunflower seeds removed) left that.

Dinner I offerred him some fruit and vegis again for a while, then put his regular back in.

He picked at certain things. He likes raw carrots, because I eat them and often give him pieces. Same with zuccini and squash but I think he is still wondering what the heck is going on.

Today I'm going to look for some kind of commercial seed products that don't have 90% sunflower seeds and talk to another bird place.

I'm looking into making my own dry seed type thing (after a great deal more research).

I will work up to the gloop for 2 reasons, One both of us need to get used to some of this and I'm not 100% comfortable with what I'm doing and second, I am trying not to over whelm his diet too fast.

I'll let you know what I find out about my lights. I didn't keept he boxes and if the info is on the bulbs, I need a ladder to climb up and take the thing apart. And with the knee replacement, umm that might be harder than I originally thought.

I'll keep you posted.

[Pajarita]

With an overly hormonal bird, the most important thing to take into consideration with the light is the Ktemp because a high one would put them in breeding condition. I have seen full spectrums that have 6500! I actually like 5000 better than 5500 but it's not easy to find a 5000 ktemp with a good CRI... Another thing about the lights, I usually turn on 'regular' bulbs for a while and then the full spectrum so they are not on all day long because we need to remember that the specs given are what the noon sun light looks like and we don't want noon light all day long, either...

Don't worry about changing his diet slowly because, even if you did not want to go slow, it will still be slow as he/she will take his/her own sweet time to begin eating a large range of produce -switching a parrot is never an easy or fast process BUT, on the other hand and in my personal experience and opinion, few parrots are better eaters than amazons! Mine even eat their greens almost every day (they got broccoli-rabe today which they like very much) and that is something I can't get the grays or the senegals to do often enough to even call it 'regularly'...

Also, don't worry about not been sure of how to cook the grains - birds don't care if they are too soft or too hard, they eat them anyway But, for a first timer, I would make them harder rather than softer.

[Swannranch]

Update after the storm. We did well and even though satellite looked like we were under it, we had almost zero effect. Not even much rain. So we did well.
Jingles is doing so well! I can actually see if not hormones changes, some changes. He is singing again, which he hasn't done in months. He is LOVING the schedule and probably the more personal one on one time. The food change is slow and as you said, he is not sure about it. He loves his morning time with me and breakfast together. He likes the carrots and zucchini, but the rest is taking more time. His seed miss, he is eating be not super sure about it.
I hope to get a vet appointment next week and I have ordered some lights. For now he has mostly natural light with the drawing lights on about an hour or 3 then back to natural light.
Found a black cloth to cover him but it's not black out type, so I will look for that best week when I'm in town. If not. I can probably find some online.
I can't thank you all enough. I will be back with updates especially after the vet appointment!
He is already happier and I'm sure healthier. I was so excited when he started singing!

[Pajarita]

Great news and we are sooo happy we were able to help him (and you!). Please ask the vet to do a bile acids test - most vets don't routinely do it, they do the CBC (Complete Blood Count) and an avian chem panel (this is the one that tells you about the enzymes and other stuff on the blood aside from the red and white cell count) but I have learned that the ONLY way to tell about their liver is through this test (there is no other that tells you about liver function).

And keep on trying with the diet. It does take them quite a while but amazons are natural great eaters of produce so it's more a matter of time and insistence than anything else with them.

I hear you about the singing! Everybody that comes to my house is delighted with Mami's singing even though she is completely tone deaf and sings worse than I do

[Swannranch]

New question...So My appointment is the 20th. But He/she started flying today. Seriously kind of shocked me but he flew down from the top of the cage to the floor several times this week. This is kind of new. Since I don't really have a "safe" place for him to fly regularly I need to be with him the whole time he is out (wires, fans etc. . .) So far he has only flown from high to the ground, but he was using his wings...I watched. Should I encourage this? And how long, like a day? He is napping about noon (as you said, and as he always has). I won't be clipping his wings but since he has never really flown, I'm not sure whether to try to encourage it or just let him figure it out. He always (even when being aggressive) responds to "step up" so he is easy to put away even if I have to use a glove or a wand of some kind if I can't reach him.

[Wolf]

As for how much to encourage your bird to fly goes, I would say that it depends on the amount of space available for them to fly in. I live in a small house, so although none of my birds are clipped, I don't really encourage my larger parrots to fly like I do with the smaller ones. I also do not discourage it either. Still having the ability to fly is important to their self confidence and sense of well being. My Grey feel uncomfortable with trying to fly is such a small space as I live in, but she does hold on to the top of hey play top cage as well as holding on to her boing rope that is attached to the ceiling and beats the air furiously with her wings. The rope is her favorite place for doing this as by holding on to it she can fly in circles that are much tighter than she would otherwise be able to do. So in a sense she does get to fly inside of the house as much as she wants to . Flight is very important to a bird and has just as many beneficial effect physically as it does mentally and emotionally.

I turn the fans off while my birds are out of their cages so that they do not risk injury while out and I have done the best that I can in hiding any electrical wiring from them to make a safer place for them to wander about in. Still I am always with them whenever they are out of their cages. I am for the most part their favorite landing place as well as their favorite perch so it all works out for the best as I really do enjoy the interaction with them. My birds are out of their cages for at least 4 hours each day although I have to break it into several different time spaces due to needing to get things done as well as to allow the smaller ones time out without danger from the larger birds.

I really can't tell you how best to work this ot for you and your bird(s) but you can figure it out without too much problem, all I can tell you for certain is that for the birds benefit as well as for the benefit of your relationship with your birds it is well worth the effort.