Full spectrum lighting?

psittac · Oct 27, 2013

I have a full spectrum fluorescent light that I used to put over my birds cage. I made certain to get an expensive one with the proper ballast so it doesn't give my bird the strobe affect.

I haven't been using it for about the last year and wanted to see what you guys think about using them.

bluecrownmama · Oct 27, 2013

Oh I am very curious about this too! I don;t have one but I recently came across suggestions to use them. I'd like to try it with my blue crown because he does so much better with a solid 12 hours of dark sleep-and with the darker days here now I wonder if solid 12 hours of light will help him too. I haven;t heard about the strobe affect from less expensive ones-can you elaborate? Did you notice any differences in your bird when you were using it?

psittac · Oct 27, 2013

If you were to use a regular fluorescent light fixture they have an operating frequency that while humans can't see it, to a bird it looks like a strobe light. Think of when you film a monitor or tv screen.

What I noticed in my bird was that she molted more often, also when I first started using it she got little light pink spots on the top of her eyes but it didn't last long, I figured it was kind of like getting a sun tan or a light sun burn.

MonicaMc · Oct 28, 2013

Full spectrum lights have a burn in period, and can cause major damage to a birds eyes... especially if they are the reptile bulbs and are too close to the cage during the burn in period.

Some people use them, others don't. I do have a full spectrum bulb (not tube) and it does provide a nice white light! It is probably of no benefit to the birds now (if it ever was, - re: vitamin D synthesis - I've had it for 5+ years now!) and is used in a bedroom that, without said light, would be very dark!

psittac · Oct 28, 2013

ok it must have been that burn in period that caused the problem, I was unaware of that. I avoided reptile bulbs because the UV level was just to high, these are actually craft lights sold at hobby lobby but are full spectrum.

I don't know what affect the UV has on her other then causing her to molt more frequently.

I do know that birds can see spectrums that we can not and windows block out these spectrums so I feel that it's letting her see more and in some small way giving her something she would otherwise lose out on.

I actually stopped using her light about a year ago due to a nagging suspicion that it was causing eye damage. That's why I posted this because I want her to have the wave lengths to see more as well as any possible health benefits.

JerseyWendy · Oct 28, 2013

Here is a great read on lighting.

http://www.parrotforums.com/general-health-care/35383-lighting-information-birds.html

MonicaMc · Oct 28, 2013

CRI raiting needs to be 92-98 (98 being the best)
Color temperature between 5,000 and 5,500 Kelvin

Do you know what the ratings on the craft lights are?

Full spectrum lighting?

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