Critique My Setup (New Poi Owner)

[Grraarrgghh]

Hello ParrotForum,

I have been absorbing your forum and many other parrot related books and websites for ~9 months now, and have recently procured a beautiful 10-week old male Red-Bellied Parrot (Ralph!) from a breeder in a nearby city, and would like to know if I'm doing a passable job keeping it.

Disclaimer: I have kept birds in the past (my parents owned an Alexandrine and 2 cockatiels).

I have no pictures available currently, but I swear I will post some soon. My setup is as follows:

An 18"x24"x33" 5/8" spacing powdered cage purchased used, pressure washed, bleached (1:10), went over with a toothbrush, and pressure washed again. This cage is kept in a 15x15 room (1 of 2 guest rooms) that is very warm throughout the day, has a large south facing window (the cage is ~5 feet from the window, not in the direct light). Ralph spends the hours of 12 AM to 5 PM M-F and 12 AM to 7 AM Sat-Sun in this cage. I am planning on getting a larger cage for the daytime as he grows. It has a door to keep out our two cats.

A 24"x"24"x39" 3/4" spacing powdered cage with playtop purchased used, pressure washed, bleached (1:10), went over with a toothbrush, and pressure washed again. This cage is kept in the rec/nerdspace I custom built (draft sealed, 2 small windows) in my basement earlier this year. It is where me and my wife spend 90% of our time not sleeping at home. Ralph spends 5 PM to 12 AM in this cage M-F and 7 AM - 12 PM (unless we leave the house) Sat-Sun.

We have 2 perches along with the playstand for out of cage play in the basement.

Is there anything I should be doing different/purchasing?

[Wolf]

I am assuming that you go to bed around midnight as this seems to be the time that you are moving your bird between his sleeping and living spaces. This is not good for your bird as he needs to be on exactly the same schedule as the birds outside. This means that he should be getting up and going to bed along with the sun. He should also be exposed to the twilight periods that occur at dawn and dusk. This is needed to keep his internal clock and his endocrine system functioning properly.
I am concerned that a bar spacing of larger than 3/4 inch may be too wide for your bird, but this could be because I have a Senegal which is slightly smaller of a bird than yours. You didn't mention anything about toys for your bird and because of this I want to mention that he would do well with foraging type toys as well as ones meant for him to destroy, you know the ones that are made from wood or palm fronds and such. Most cages come with dowels for perches and these are not good for their feet as they are too round and put pressure on exactly the same spot on their feet. The best thing to do is to replace them with natural branches from a bird safe tree such as a fir and leaving the bark on them for the bird to chew on. This type of perch is good for their feet and helps to groom both their toenails and their beaks.
I do not know what you are feeding him or how old he is but he should be eating a low fat, low protein diet with a large variety of vegetables and some fruit as well. These items should be fed in the mornings and for all day long nibbling with a ration of a good quality seed mix given for their dinner and the seed mix removed after the bird goes to bed.
The bird requires about 4 hours or more out of cage time with at least one hour of that spent as one on one time with you on a daily basis. This is a minimum amount of time.
This touches on the basics that are required for your bird to be healthy, if you have more questions please feel free to ask.

[Grraarrgghh]

To touch a on a few things:

I'm fairly certain i have his feeding down, I've made gloop (following the recipe in Parrots For Dummies; not this sites), and followed the fruit, vegetable and protein guides online, supplanted with seed (no sunflowers/soy).

As far as bar spacing goes, 5/8" is smaller than 3/4", I was actually concerned that the 3/4" might be a bit large, however it's his supervised cage, so hopefully it isn't an issue.

I do appreciated the advice about the sleep time. Honestly, we usually put him to sleep at 10:30 or so, but I didn't want to sound like a bad person and only see my bird for 5.5 hours on a weekday

I didn't mention perches but he has 3 perches (one dowel, one smaller branchtype, and a concrete perch at the bottom of the cage) in his daytime cage, and 4 in the larger cage (same + a rope), as well as lots of toys (chew and forage, I am very close to a great bird store!) , and swings.

I was more concerned about his cage placement or his time alone every day, though so far he seems to be doing quite well!

[Wolf]

I know that 5/8 in. is smaller than 3/4 [n. and I would have been better advised to have written that I was concerned that 3/4 in or larger would be too wide for this species instead of just expressing concern about larger than 3/4 in. spacing, but you already have up to 3/4 in. and you can look and see that without me an so I was more concerned with whatever you replaced your cage (s) with more so than with what you have. and since we are here as for the size of cages larger in overall size is always better but for minimum sizes one needs to consider a cage that is double the wingspan of the bird it is for. A birds wingspan is roughly twice its length, generally speaking so a bird that is 9 in. long from tip of beak to tip of tail will need a minimum of 36 in. cage and the cage should be tall enough for the bird to perch at close to your eye level.
I like to place my cages near a window, both for the light and because it also give my birds more to look at. Some birds will prefer the cage place so that there is one side that is protected by a wall or what appears to them to be a wall as this is one side that a predator can't approach from or watch them from.
Since you are as concerned about the time you get to spend with your bird, it would appear to me that you are a working person and that means that your time is at a premium. I am now disabled, but I do understand. There is not much that I can do about how you schedule your time as all I can do is to say what the bird needs and that is really determined by the sun and its effects on the bird and its system, but I am sure that there are many birds that would be happier if their working human would or could spend five or five and a half hours with them on working days as I am sure that many don't get near that. It is difficult to give a bird all that it needs when you must work for a living. So to be sure I don't think of you as a bad person. On the contrary I think that you care very much about your bird or else you would not have asked the things that you have asked. And I owe it to both you and your bird to answer as honestly as I can.

[liz]

I slept really late and am only on my second coffee but hope I caught on to what is being said.
If your baby is too little for it's cage, you can put nylon net on the outside and hold it on with magnets. I use magnets when I cover the cockatiels to keep Myrtle from pulling it off.

[Grraarrgghh]

That's a great idea! I'm not too sure if he can fit his body through the bars, but most places warn you about the bird getting their head caught, which can be pretty gruesome.

[Wolf]

I don't think that his body will fit through either but its head is another story and was my concern as well.

[Pajarita]

10 pm is still way too late for him. My birds are getting their lights turned off at 3:30 pm this time of the year and are all fast asleep by 6 pm. I took in a redbellied hen in July, she also had been kept at a human light schedule and her endocrine system was so screwed up by it that she didn't even molt this year. You might say that molting or not is not THAT important but the endocrine system 'manages' or is directly involved in every body function (including the health of the immune system).

[Grraarrgghh]

Makes sense, a bird from an equatorial region such as Kenya would be engaged with a 12/12 lightcycle year round (according to the web 6:25 AM sun up 6:25 PM sun down).

Tricky.

I guess in that regard, is it possible to keep a happy/healthy/socialized parrot if you work a 9 to 5? (or in my case, 8-4:30)

[Wolf]

No, that is not they way that it works. I suppose that it is logical in some ways to assume that it would work that way, but it doesn't.There are some things about them being from a tropical climate that remain the same regardless of where they reside, such as their sensitivity to cold temperatures but not their circadian cycles as these are photoperiodic in nature. This simply means that their breeding cycles and the health of their auto immune system are governed by the length of the day as well as the type of light present at dawn and dusk. This is what controls their endocrine system which is responsible for regulating nearly every other system in their body. Parrots are photoperiodic birds, like most other bird and therefore to remain in synchronization with the season, where they live they need to get up and go to bed with the sun and also be exposed to the twilight periods of dusk and dawn, just the same as all of the other birds that live in your area. This means that you need to find a way to adjust your schedule to allow for the schedule that they need in order to be healthy and I do understand that you work and that adjusting to meet their needs is not an easy task.