Heat Resources

[zandperl]

Those of us in the Northeast are currently experiencing a heat wave with some places expecting highs today of 100ºF (which I think is 37.5ºC, for you Canuckians and other people on saner temperature scales than us). So I thought that I'd solicit people's heat stories and heat advice here, so anyone with experience and ideas can lend it to anyone

Comments

[ltdead]

To be honest - we hit 100F last weekend and neither the 'tiels nor the conures batted an eye. No one was panting, or holding their wings out, they looked perfectly content.

They weren't in direct sunlight (not that we /ever/ get direct sunlight in this apartment), and I kept the ceiling fan running. And of course they had access to ample water. Most parrots are from relatively tropical locales - and cockatiels do reside in the Australian deserts, where it does hit 100F. For your average, healthy parrot, just keeping them out of direct sunlight, maintaining some air movement, and providing water should be enough to keep them well. Also: avoid moving them abruptly from cool temperatures to hot and vice-versa. They may indeed experience stress if they were being air conditioned, and suddenly the AC broke.

But I've personally never witnessed any members of my flock panting or exhibiting signs of heat-stress if we weren't A) in direct sunlight or B) in a car without the air on.

If an individual bird does start to show signs of heat stress - I'd try a spray-bottle bath, or providing access to a large, flat bathing dish. My conures are particularly delighted if I float ice cubes in their bathing water, in any weather. They just LOVE to play with ice cubes.

[trafficked]

I second the large bathing dish. In the (mainly) outdoor aviary I work in (in NE Texas, so its hot here all the time), all of our birds have access to several cool bird baths as well as having the option to come inside into the AC. Most of our birds do fine and go back outside after cooling off for a couple of hours or so.