Why do they panic when the lights go off??

H2015 · Post by **H2015** » Tue May 13, 2008 3:12 pm

Every night when the lights automatically turn off my Gouldians freak out REAL bad and at first I thought maybe they'll get used to it but they never did and it's been months!

The main light in the room remains on when their lights go off so they're not in total darkness for at least an hour but they still continue to spend 10-15 minutes fluttering and blindly flying into the wire bars which is frustrating cause I knew one of them will get hurt and that almost happened tonight cause one of them had it's foot stuck between two closer bars in the corner and almost broke it while trying to pull it out - if I wasn't there it would've been a disaster so I'd really appreciate tips on this problem.

BTW I have zebras and shaftails in the same room and under similar lighting but all of them go to sleep peacefully except for the Goulds

livinonaprayer · Post by **livinonaprayer** » Tue May 13, 2008 5:48 pm

Have you ever tried a night light?
Do you cover them?

fairestfinches · Post by **fairestfinches** » Tue May 13, 2008 9:17 pm

Our birds are in their own rooms, and their cage lights are the only ones on in the room. It could be that that they just haven't figured out how to know when the lights will go out and it scares them every tiume as a result. It sounds like you may have yours located in a common area of your home and they are exposed to other sources of lighting.

I don't know if this will help or not, but we have dozens of lights set up in our bird room and we use timers on all of them. One thing that I have found that has really helped our birds to stop freaking out when lights go off is to set our lilghts up to go off in phases. We run four circuits of lights in the main bird room, I have them set up to go out about 5 minutes apart. Having this set up seems to do a couple of things.

1. When lights go out on the first circuit of cages they still have plenty of light from the other cages in the next circuit to settle in.

2. The other birds know that lights are going out when the circuit next to theirs goes off and gives them a chance to settle in.

We also keep a couple of night lights on.

You could try setting up a secondary light that is maybe half the wattage and set it for 10 minutes longer than the first. Another option would be to cover the cage 10 minutes before lights out a way to tell them it's time to settle in. After a while the birds should get used to the early warning system.

Post by **Sally** » Tue May 13, 2008 11:01 pm

I also have my lights on timers, with three different banks of lights, so they go off about 10 minutes apart. I also have a 25w red light bulb in the ceiling (this is a 10'x10' room), this is not on a timer, so I have to turn it on each night before the other lights go off. Once in a while, I have had to go back in the birdroom after 'lights out', I am very careful and quiet, and most of the birds don't react, but if anyone is going to freak, it is the Gouldians.

mickp · Post by **mickp** » Wed May 14, 2008 5:38 am

why not have the lights set up with a dimmer included in the circuit. make it seem more like natural sunset coming on nd gradually going dark over a period of time, maybe 15 minutes or 30 minutes. something like this would make it easier for the birds to accept than the sudden pitch black

Bonzo · Post by **Bonzo** » Wed May 14, 2008 6:14 am

mickp wrote:why not have the lights set up with a dimmer included in the circuit. make it seem more like natural sunset coming on nd gradually going dark over a period of time, maybe 15 minutes or 30 minutes. something like this would make it easier for the birds to accept than the sudden pitch black

They have that out there & cost BIG Bucks

hilljack13 · Post by **hilljack13** » Thu May 15, 2008 4:52 pm

fairestfinches wrote: One thing that I have found that has really helped our birds to stop freaking out when lights go off is to set our lilghts up to go off in phases. We run four circuits of lights in the main bird room, I have them set up to go out about 5 minutes apart. Having this set up seems to do a couple of things.

Don't have this but this would be the best. Ditto that!!