Star's beak color

[H2015]

UPDATE: For the past 6 months I was mostly away from my birds, during most of this time they were on basic diet (seed mixed with vitamins and crushed shells for calcium) - therefore the faded beak problem remained but oddly it was only evident among females, both my star finch and my shaft tail females had faded from red to light orange.

I'm positively sure this is a deficiency of some sort and their constant egg laying didn't help matters either.

So for the past month I moved all my birds into a smaller flight that is lit by reptile UV lighting and started to feed them carrots and other green veggies on a regular basis + adding paprika to their egg food + a cup of F-Vite available at all times.

Within just 10 days my red star is now back to having a red beak. One of the shaft tails remain orange-ish but also improving.

I think the UV light was a big factor, my birds were never exposed to any sun light and the florescent light I was using probably wasn't efficient enough. The only issue is that UV lights (at least around here) are quite costly so I'm not sure how I'm going to afford them for my future indoor aviary.

[Sally]

There has been some discussion lately about the effectiveness of the lights we use on our cages and aviaries. Full-spectrum lights were the way to go, but now, it seems that it may not be enough. They need D3 in their diet, which they can get with supplements, or many veggies have D3. Perhaps the addition of regular veggies to their diet had something to do with it? The perfect situation is to have them in an outside aviary with some sunlight available, but not everyone can do that. It will be interesting to see how this theory works with time.