Help,Help,Help,Help,Help,Help,Help...............

[george111]

Hello.I’m sorry for a letter like thes and sorry my bad English.I am not moocher and beggar bat I need “HELP” for my parrot.I visited ornithologist and hes told me: your parrot needs ultraviolet special lamp for parrot.Please if you can help me and my parrot,And my financial situation is bad,Please help me... I can’t Buy a lamp like this. “PLEASE”:maybe somehow you help me,With much exauses,for such request.Please send me ansver or this email: massagegeorge@gmail.com or georgemassage@mail.ru
SINSERLY, George Goga

sorry,sorry,sorry............

[macbrush]

Bring your bird outside once a week for a few hours of sunbathing is better than any lamp.

[liz]

Put his cage near a window that gets sunlight. Take him outside at least once a week.

[Naurthon]

You don't really need a special LAMP, you just need full-spectrum bulbs. They're not really that expensive. You can find them for between $15-$20 (USD) without much problem. If you can't find a local retailer who stocks them, you can order them on line.

Putting your bird near a window WILL NOT give it UV exposure. Window glass blocks 90% of light in the UV spectrum. That also means that installing a full-spectrum bulb under a glass light fixture is pointless. Your bird will not receive any UV exposure that way. They really need to have the bare bulb visible to them to get the benefit of the UV.

Taking a bird outside often isn't possible or practical. Here in Seattle, we've only had a few hours of sunshine in the last month and the UV doesn't penetrate our usual cloud cover. Nevermind that it's been cold enough to snow three times in the last week. Unless you live in a predictably warm and sunny location, getting a full-spectrum lamp is a much more reliable source of UV for your bird.

[GlassOnion]

Take him out in his cage or a small travel cage OUTSIDE in natural sunlight. Do that a few times a week for Vitamin D3, which aids in calcium absorption. Full spectrum lightbulbs are good, but it's very important that your Budgie gets natural sunlight.

[MeanDonnaJean]

Putting your bird near a window WILL NOT give it UV exposure. Window glass blocks 90% of light in the UV spectrum....

...Taking a bird outside often isn't possible or practical. Here in Seattle, we've only had a few hours of sunshine in the last month...

I've also read that to be true. However, I thought I read somewhere that the same goes for window and/or door screens. True, or false?

My reason for askin' is pretty much as you stated in the second part of your answer above -- since its only mid-March and as such its still too cold here in NY to put my brood outside on the back deck as I usually do in warm weather, I (and they!) like to have their cages parked next to the screened back door where the sun fully shines directly inside.

So my question is, do screens also block UV?

BTW - I DO have & use full spectrum lighting for their cages, but I much prefer the real deal

[Naurthon]

Putting your bird near a window WILL NOT give it UV exposure. Window glass blocks 90% of light in the UV spectrum....

...Taking a bird outside often isn't possible or practical. Here in Seattle, we've only had a few hours of sunshine in the last month...

I've also read that to be true. However, I thought I read somewhere that the same goes for window and/or door screens. True, or false?

Well, MDJ, there are two ways to look at the question, and depending on how you look at it, the answer is either "true" or "false".

First the technical answer: the material screens are made of are opaque to light, and the screen material probably covers (I'm guessing) maybe 5% of the window area, effectively blocking out around 5% of ALL light that passes through the window. (Okay...VERY technically, that blocked light eventually gets re-radiated as infrared light (heat) and some of that will be radiated into the house, but not enough to consider here.) So to the degree that a window screen provides shade by blocking ALL light, it blocks UV, so the answer is "true to a small degree".

Now the practical answer: screens are mostly composed of gaps that allow light to pass through them, and that includes UV light. UV passes through air, and screens are mostly air, so while the screen material prevents a small amount of all light from passing through, the majority of light still can get through the screen, so the practical answer is "false to any practical degree".

If you put your parrot near a screened in but open window, your bird will get some UV from where the light is not passing through the glass.

Love answering simple questions both "yes" and "no".

[MeanDonnaJean]

Love answering simple questions both "yes" and "no".

....and you do it SO very well I might add

If you put your parrot near a screened in but open window, your bird will get some UV from where the light is not passing through the glass.

I thank you very much, kind sir. I do believe the above answer suffices quite nicely.

And now, to elaborate a bit -- I have a very old heavy wooden inside door with an outside storm door in the rear of the house. The upper and lower plexiglass panes of the storm door are removable and replaceable with screened versions (I just replaced the entire upper pane with brand new screening all by myself a few days ago....and with it being my very first DIY full screen replacement, I did a damn-good bang-up job of it, if I do say so myself!).

So when the weather starts to warm that's exactly what I do....I open up the wooden door and put the birds T-Stand smack dab in front of the screen door where they get full sun along with all of the lil' outside birdies sights and sounds to their hearts content. Then, when things really begin to warm up nicely, I put both flight cages directly outside right on the rear deck. There is a nice overhang above which keeps as much of their cages shaded as I wish, yet still gives them access to direct sunlight, and they all spend most of their days out there.

Birdie life don't get much better than THAT! LOL