Keeping my conure cool this summer. Please help!

[BoomBoom]

Hi, guys. Summers in my city can get up to 110F. I want my conure to be comfortable. Last summer we got through by pointing a box fan out the window, a stand fan circulating air in the room, ice bottles and frequent showers. I caught him panting a couple of times and was worried he would have heat stroke. I don’t want to go through that worry again so I want to make my portable AC work with my windows.


The problem is, I have a crank/swing window. My portable AC is meant for sliding windows. So I deviced a plan to use custom-cut plexiglass to mount the AC exhaust on. That fixes the temperature problem but it creates a new problem for me:


Plexiglass blocks UV rays. This is the only window in the apartment where Boomer can get his daily dose of afternoon sun. By the time I get off work, the sun would be setting so the only time I can get Boomer some sun is on the weekends. I don’t trust in full spectrum light bulbs (yes he has one installed). I am also worried that Boomer won’t have access to fresh air.


What would you do in my case?

 

[Mudkips]

If I were in your situation I would definitely install the plexiglass.

In the summer you can easily get too much UV light, so blocking a little more won't do any harm.
As for the fresh air - yes it is important, but much less so then the need for cooling. You can counter this by opening the windows during the cooler hours of the day or night to "freshen up" the air in the house.

 

[MonicaMc]

Ice water and fruit slushies/pops (made with ice and/or plain green yogurt) may also be other ways to keep Boomer cool.

 

[Featheredsamurai]

At my house we use evaporation/swamp coolers in the summer during heat waves, they are inexpensive(starting at $90) and work fairly well.

[ame="http://www.amazon.com/SF-609-Portable-Evaporative-Cooler-Ionizer/dp/B000R48G5K/ref=pd_sim_sbs_hg_1"]Amazon.com: SPT SF-609 Portable Evaporative Air Cooler with Ionizer: Home & Kitchen[/ame]

 

[Melandkids]

Ok. I don't know if this will help. But I was reading up on it. Plexiglass is a brand name. So there is acrylic out there that does put a product on it to help with the UV light. Some even use it in fish tanks.

Polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) or poly(methyl 2-methylpropenoate) is the synthetic polymer of methyl methacrylate. This thermoplastic and transparent plastic is sold by the tradenames Plexiglas, Perspex, Plazcryl,Acrylite, Acrylplast, Altuglas, and Lucite and is commonly called acrylic glass or simply acrylic. The material was developed in 1928 in various laboratories and was brought to market in 1933 by Rohm and Haas Company.

Properties
The material is often used as an alternative to glass. Differences in the properties of the two materials include:

PMMA is lighter: its density (1190 kg/m3) is about half that of glass.
PMMA does not shatter
PMMA is softer and more easily scratched than glass. This can be overcome with scratch-resistant coatings.
PMMA can be easily formed, by heating it to 100 degrees Celsius.
PMMA transmits more light (92% of visible light) than glass.
Unlike glass, PMMA does not filter UV (ultraviolet) light. PMMA transmits UV light, at best intensity, down to 300 nm. Some manufacturers coat their PMMA with UV films to add this property. On the other hand, PMMA molecules have great UV stability compared to polycarbonate.
PMMA allows infrared light of up to 2800 nm wavelength to pass. IR of longer wavelengths, up to 25,000 nm, are essentially blocked. Special formulations of colored PMMA exist to allow specific IR wavelengths to pass while blocking visible light (for remote control or heat sensor applications, for example).
PMMA can be joined using cyanoacrylate cement (so-called "Superglue"), or by using liquid di- or trichloromethane to dissolve the plastic at the joint which then fuses and sets, forming an almost invisible weld. PMMA can also be easily polished to restore cut edges to full transparency.

 

[BoomBoom]

Thank you for all the varied responses! That's what I love about this community. When I feel like I'm stuck on something when it comes to Boomer's care, I go to this site and find 3 or 4 different ways to handle a situation. So thank you very much.


I will probably go with the PMMA acrylic that Melandkinds posted (thank you!) I will go to a hardware store sometime soon, after I measure my window screen.


I still have a few doubts about keeping Boomer in an air conditioned room. A slight concern is the cost of keeping the AC running all day while I'm at work, but that I can live with that. Perhaps the biggest concern is that weirdness about keeping a bird in a chilled room when they were made to withstand tropical heat. But better that than coming home from an overheated bird I guess. I don't want to feel so worried all the time like last summer. I felt guilty being in my cold, cozy office while Boomer was in his cage at 95F to 110F.


How many of you guys keep the AC on for your birds? How much heat do you think they can tolerate without feeling miserable?

 

[Customcasket]

I have central air in my house. It's generally set at 76 degrees. It's just enough to keep the humidity down (it gets soooooo sticky and disgusting to go along with the heat in NJ). My room has 2 walls exposed to the outside so it gets pretty warm in my room. When the sun is setting it can get near 90 in my room. I guess in order to keep your costs down you could run it only on days that would be really stinking hot or keep it set at a higher temperature so it wasn't constantly running the condenser. I know units like that just kinda run all the time and only kick the condenser on when the temperature rises.

 

[WannaBeAParrot]

Hi boom boom. we live in Southeast Florida where the summers r unbearably hot. central a.c. is on thermostat and always in the "on" position. It varies between 74° and 78 during day. Since pritti is used to that, i never let it go warmer than 78 when he is alone in house. last summer i installed a portable ac in bedroom even tho there is central. it helped cut down elec usage because we spent most of our time in there when i was home, which is A LOT in summer because it is too hot to be outdoors during day unless absolutely necessary for me. one of his play gyms is in there and he has a sleeping place too. The room is pretty spacious, so it was like living in a studio apt and worked out fine. But when not home, he went to family room cage by window at 78, with half of it in shade, plus a box to hang out in for total shade.

Try to figure out boomer's comfort zone. The evaporative cooler mentioned might be good. for u too. Also, marble and other hard tiles retain coolness. Maybe u could put some down as the floor ofmthe cage for summer.

 

[BoomBoom]

Thank you, WannaBeAParrot and Customcasket!!!

I live in Long Beach, Ca where the highest temp is supposed to be 89F. Last summer it got to 110 one day and it was scary hot. So its looking like I would definitely install the AC then.

I've tried the swamp cooler (evap cooler) before I had Boomer. It developed a bad smell after a while probably from mold and I had no idea how to change the filter to that thing lol! So I am a bit hesitant to purchase one now. It also never really brought the temp of the room down after it reaches a certain high temp. Thank you again for the info!

 

[Featheredsamurai]

Here's a useful blog post

Heat Stress In Birds

 

[weco]

Boomer, swamp coolers, or that type of A/C system was where Legionnaires' Disease was first detected at the Bellevue Stafford Hotel in Philadelphia back in the late '70s.....

The BS was/is an old, first class hotel with, at the time, antiquated A/C systems that were similar to swamp cooler designs.....and the swamp basins were found to collect bird poop because pigeons & other birds would bathe & poop in these basins, but the basins were never or rarely cleaned, and because of the design, at that time, the bacteria that grew in the swamp basins eventually was passed into the ducting, where, because of the moist air passing through the ductwork, allowed different bacterias & molds to grow there also.....the result being a bacteria driven pneumonia that the medical community had never really seen, so, yes, I would be hesitant to use a swamp cooler also, unless I planned on thoroughly cleaning & using anti-mold agents on a weekly basis.....

If you install a window A/C unit in a room that is not well insulated you may still have to contend with a mold problem, because the cooled air is going to generate an amount of additional moisture in that room.....most good hardware stores carry thermometer/hygrometer combination units that will allow you to monitor indoor & outdoor humidity levels 40%-55% is a good target figure.....

Often we have the misconception that because parrots originated in the tropics, they can handle hot temps.....not always true birds bred & hatched where they live readily adapt to their surrounding environment, however, our fids wild cousins can better handle temperature extremes than you may think.....Austrailia averages 32 to 40 °C (90 to 104 °F) in the summer (their summer), but birds native to Australia taken from Australia & dropped into a Brazilian rain forrest would have problems acclimating, as would birds plucked fro the rain forrest & dropped into an Australian savannah.....humidity in both cases...either too much or too little.....

In a rain forrest, you have a canopy some 200 feet or higher off the forrest floor and at different elevations within that environment you can have temperature variations of 10-15 degrees because the different levels of air movement needs to be factored in, so that coupled with boomer's several layers of feathers, he's actually got a built-in cooling system in the summer & built-in heating system in the winter.....

In the U.S. & Canada the average healthy parrot can normally handle temps between freezing and 80 degrees F, however, without drafts/breezes in the winter and with drafts/breezes in the summer...all that having been said, a true stucco house in California, with a couple of fans, should be able to keep you indoor temp at between 80 & 90 degrees F when the outside temp is 115 degrees F.....

Looks like we've got some hot blooded women in this thread.....my birds live at 65 degrees in the winter and 78-80 degrees in the summer, maybe a bit cooler if the humidity is high.....my wife went out & bought an electric blanket for her side of the bed, because I put a small window A/C unit in one of our BR windows, to keep it cool for sleeping.....you can always get warm, but trying to sleep in hot muggy weather is not my cup of tea, though I've been to Australasia (hot & muggy...dripping wet muggy) & spent a year in Alaska (60 below zero for almost 2 weeks), almost due west of Mt. McKinley...and...birds live comfortably in both places.....

 

[Featheredsamurai]

@weca
scary! I never thought of mold coming from them but it makes since. Luckily I've never used them in my room, usually one is set up in the living room down stairs and one in my parents room. But only during bad heat waves which we haven't had the last couple years.

ugh, one more thing to worry about if they are taken out again.

 

[MonicaMc]

Birds can typically handle being a bit too cool rather than a bit too warm. Although many parrots are from tropical and hot climates, some of them still endure freezing cold temps! South America and Australia do have places that get snow! That's not to say that parrots from those countries have to deal with snow, but it does get cold there! Birds have down feathers to keep them warm, so being a bit too chilly isn't an issue as long as they are healthy. However, overheating is a much bigger issue for them because they don't have an easy way to keep cool other than panting, holding feathers tight to their body and spreading their wings open to try and cool themselves.

 

[goalerjones]

I learned a valuable lesson with my first bird. I took him outside with me, blithely unaware that he could overheat. By the time I realized that something was wrong he was mouth breathing and tail-bobbing. I immediately took him inside and held him next to the open freezer to cool him down.