I absolutely love seeing Toto bathe, because I am forced to consider that things I thought were weird quirks of my quaker, like holding up one foot for a while before awkwardly splatting down into the water, might just be species traits. Except this only raises more questions in my mind.
Quakers work in mysterious ways
So mysterious that they donāt even know whatās going on
Itās definitely one of those areas of research thatās really new as far as captive parrot keeping goes, so we all err on the side of caution with these things.
When thereās been reports of massive eye damage occurring as a result of UVB exposure we take that as critical information and respond accordingly! I donāt deny thatās itās totally possible to use higher doses in different scenarios, itās just a matter of is the dose necessary to get the benefits parrots need from it vs the risks associated with the higher exposure. Which is all currently vastly under studied unfortunately
So as parrot people with highly sensitive birds we tend to take the more cautious route
Hopefully we hit a point where more reliable studies are done and more reliable bulbs are able to be produced!
In the meantime we utilize lower UVB output bulbs to help over the winter seasons and get them outdoors throughout summer!
Hello! So I'm sure you've seen from my previous comments that I'm in the facebook group Reptile Lighting. Someone posted today looking for uvb recommendations for their African Grey parrot, and mentioned that a lot of parrot Facebook groups claim that uvb causes blindness. Do you know more about this, and why people think that? Could it be that someone was using a bulb in a very small cage where the bird couldn't self regulate their exposure?
UVB in high doses does cause damage to a parrotās eyes, thatās the main reason why they canāt use reptile bulbs and have to have parrot specific ones. The UVB output is much lower and the bulbs will have set regulations on how long theyāre recommended to be left on for (usually one hour in most cases) as well as how far away the bird should be from the light
Parrots are usually spending the majority of the day in shaded areas in trees when the sun is at its peak and do the majority of their active foraging during sunrise and sunset when the sun is less intense so their eyes just arenāt evolved to handle the intensity of the sun at high noon like basking reptiles are!
So i saw your answer post where you said the name of the rubber ball you used for treats (the hol-ee roller one)
i got two mini size ones for my two cockatiels, and i would just like to thank you for the name (and the trick to cut the ball in one spot to be able to put the treats in) because my cockatiels love them and also it's a lot better than the vine balls i used before !
(i still use them a bit, but those get destroyed SO FAST and also they get dirty very very fast š at least the rubber balls are easy to wash!)
Glad they enjoy them! They definitely last a while, Iāve had some of mine for about 6-7 years š
Hello! So I'm sure you've seen from my previous comments that I'm in the facebook group Reptile Lighting. Someone posted today looking for uvb recommendations for their African Grey parrot, and mentioned that a lot of parrot Facebook groups claim that uvb causes blindness. Do you know more about this, and why people think that? Could it be that someone was using a bulb in a very small cage where the bird couldn't self regulate their exposure?
UVB in high doses does cause damage to a parrotās eyes, thatās the main reason why they canāt use reptile bulbs and have to have parrot specific ones. The UVB output is much lower and the bulbs will have set regulations on how long theyāre recommended to be left on for (usually one hour in most cases) as well as how far away the bird should be from the light
Parrots are usually spending the majority of the day in shaded areas in trees when the sun is at its peak and do the majority of their active foraging during sunrise and sunset when the sun is less intense so their eyes just arenāt evolved to handle the intensity of the sun at high noon like basking reptiles are!
Why is Toto ok with the deeper bowl of water, but not the shallow plate?
Purely because he wanted to bathe today
Toto doesnāt like getting wet, he only hopped in the tub because he wanted to have a proper bath
With the shallow dish Iām trying to convince him to step in moisture when he doesnāt actively want to be wet. So itās aversive in that situation, he finds being wet undesirable so anything involving moisture outside of the context of wanting to clean himself on his own terms will be aversive and unpleasant