New job changing birds sleep schedule.

[clark_conure]

So I got a new job, board level trouble shooting in a lab instead of a crap factory.

I love it!

Problem is my birds are used to me going to work at 5ish pm and back around 7ish am.

Now I wake around 4 am leave around 5-5:30 am back around 2-3 pm.

My birds are still on the previous schedule and are kinda unwilling to change. They get all chirpy and pissy. They wanna sleep at 4:30 tops... no later.

Any tips on rotating their schedules?

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[clark_conure]

I have put on a radio on low during the day. Normally they used to watch me sleep.

 

[noodles123]

Put them to bed earlier and try to ride it out. Whether they know it or not, they REALLY need that sleep. It will take some time for them to adjust.

 

[SailBoat]

You are but the first of a long string of New Threads that will be revolving around both return to 'away from home' work and new work schedules.

As we all know, our Parrots love consistency, especially when it comes to their all important sleep /play /eat schedule.

So, yes, they will be grumpy and truly pissed with you, plus it may result in everything from minor to major behavioral issues. With luck, the vast majority of us have made it though the Northern Hormonal Season. But, the change in sleep schedule may spirit-on a return, especially with the Amazons and Eclectus.

 

[Elysianblight]

You are but the first of a long string of New Threads that will be revolving around both return to 'away from home' work and new work schedules.

I keep worrying about this with my budgies. I had put a deposit on them before any one had any idea there would be a quarantine (its why I got two instead of one) and then the very day before I brought them home we went into shut down.
Except for one overnight weekend, I have basically NOT been out of their sight during waking hours since the day I brought them home. Oh boy.

The past month or so I've gradually moved them from "free all day" to "in the cage during work hours" .. but they can still see me, hear me, and they get out to eat lunch with me.
To make matters worse, when I do have to go back I won't be home till their bedtime.

This is going to be rough for all three of us

Any tips on rotating their schedules?

Do you have lights that you can put on a timer? The lamp closest to my budgies' cage is set to turn itself on at a certain time in the morning, and off at night. They generally start settling when it goes off and have themselves pretty dozy by half an hour later.

Maybe setting a lamp to their current schedule, letting them get used to the visual cues, and then gradually changing the timer to be more in line with your schedule would help?

 

[fiddlejen]

My tips might not be so good for the change away from the recent lots-of-quality-time schedules our birbs have all been able to enjoy. This is more for going-forward once the re-set of reality has been established:

When I got my budgies I quickly upgraded and then re-upgraded their cages to larger and larger sizes. Same for my conure. (My Petco's Bird Whisperer calls the cage I got for my Sunny the "Conure Taj Mahal.") The reason for this was because they would be stuck in their cages while I was at work and I wanted them to have as much safe space as possible.

Now while I work-from-home, I still keep Sunny in her cage if I am not present but the budgies (specifically Jefferson) were Already Negotiating for NO CAGE restrictions (basically, by refusing to return to cage in the daylight) well before we went to work-at-home.

Anyways. What I would do was turn Off the TV when I left for work, and Put on Classical Music Station on Radio.

IF I was only leaving a Few Hours, I would put television (youtube via Roku tv) a video of an Aquarium with "relaxing" music. (Make sure to choose video a long, multi-hour video with No Yellow Lines in the video timeline - that is where they can interject sudden loud scary commercials!) The reason for aquarium is, there are really No fish that Budgies react to as predators. Whereas even a beautiful-landscape video could occasionallly send the budgies into a panic - I assume perhaps there was a predator-shadow or -call that I could not perceive.

HOwever IF i was gonna be gone All Day I would NOT leave the TV on. I would put classical radio instead. Two reasons: (1) it is fairly calm, yet auditorially interesting. (2) I don't hate it (in case they were to imitate) BUT - I don't really like it so I will automatically Turn It Off when I am home, at least after a short while. (Whereas I might leave the aquarium video running.) SO the birds know For Certain if I put on the Classical Radio I WILL be Gone for 8+ hours.

I have at times left and only put on the aquarium and then I was gone for MUCH longer than I expected (more than 6 hours) - and they were clearly unhappy and stressed by it. Whereas on the Very Few occasions where I put on the Classical and then returned home a little early, they were obviously surprised but, until seeing me, had clearly been happy and relaxed.

I suggest implementing some such procedure. It will undoubtedly take them a little while to adjust, but, this can certainly help.

And also of course make sure they have the biggest cages you can manage, when you are going to be leaving them alone all day.