DOING LIGHT RIGHT

Certain Types of Light Bulbs May Improve Birds' Health

Case in point: Two pairs of plucked green winged macaws sold to a macaw breeder, didn't even have tail feathers. After they recovered from the trauma of moving and had settled in to their new home, they kept chewing and plucking their feathers. But when the old fluorescent tubes in the aviary were replaced with full spectrum lights, the macaws began to let their feathers grow. Soon they were almost totally feathered.

Was it because of the full-spectrum light? Or the improved diet provided? Or both? It depends on whom you ask.

Manufacturers of full-spectrum lighting, lighting that mimics sunlight say their products produce an optimum living environment that makes birds healthier and happier. Avian veterinarians say birds can do just fine indoors with a good diet and fluorescent light. One lighting expert says the subject of full spectrum lighting is "interesting," but that not enough research has been done on its benefits to allow a judgment call.

Lighting the Way

Sunlight is important because it produces a feeling of well being in animals and allows the synthesis of vitamin D-3, which in turn helps animals process calcium. Sunlight consists of visible (UVA) and invisble (UVB) wavelengths; UVB is the catalyst for vitamin D-3 production. Because window glass blocks out approximately 95 percent of UVB rays, bird owners cannot put their pets in front of large windows and assume they'll get those beneficial rays. So lighting, in addition to diet becomes a very important consideration.

One question is whether to use incandescent or fluorescent light or both.

Electrical current passing through a filament in a bulb creates incandescent light, which has more wavelengths in the warmer yellow and red portions of the spectrum than fluorescent light does. It's also more expensive than fluorescent light, which has more wave lengths in the cooler blue and green parts of the spectrum.

Fluorescent light is created when electrical energy and mercury vapor stimulate the phosphors coating the inside of a bulb. Made of zinc silicate, cadmium borate and barium silicate, the phosphors convert ultraviolet radiation to visible light.

Fairly new to the market, full-spectrum fluorescent lights are so named because, using a special blend of phosphors, they supposedly produce light containing all the colors of the spectrum.

Ott's Watts

One of the first to employ full-spectrum fluorescent light was John Ott, a photobiologist who developed the concept while doing time-lapse photography for Walt Disney documentaries. In the 1940s, Ott experimented with time-lapse photography, taking pictures of flowers and plants as they grew. Interested in time-lapse photography, Disney bought film from amateurs such as Ott and wrote scripts to fit films such as "Nature's Half Acre" and "Secrets of Life."

When Ott tried to produce pumpkins under a small skylight in his basement, the vine grew but failed to produce any pumpkins. Ott added fluorescent lights to no avail. He then happened to buy different colored fluorescent tubes, starting with yellow and adding white. And the colors made a difference.

"I discovered that when I used lights that had more energy in the yellow, I got male blossoms," Ott said. "When I used daylight white, which has more energy in the shorter blue wavelengths, I could get 100 percent control. I got all the male blossoms using daylight, and with a little more blue in the spectrum I got the female."

Ott founded a company called Environmental Lighting Concepts Inc., which makes a variety of full-spectrum fluorescent bulbs. "Light is a nutrient like food or water," said Fred Mendelsohn, president of Environmental Lighting Concepts (Tampa, Fla.). "We need to duplicate it and bring it inside." According to Mendelsohn, birds and other animals become lethargic when taken inside, away from natural sunlight. Their energy level and ability to reproduce are hampered; their general health deteriorates.

But, he said, mimicked natural daylight reverses all that. "Sunlight is a catalyst that allows every vitamin, mineral and nutrient to be utilized efficiently," he said. "You can give an animal the best food, purest water and best nutrition, but light is [essential] to utilizing these things, "Full-spectrum light is like a balanced diet, he said: If you eat nothing but apples, you become malnourished. And that's what happens to birds forced to live under artificial light. But instead of calling it malnutrition, Mendelsohn said, we call it malillumination". Environmental Lighting often receives letters from satisfied customers who claim their birds are healthier, happier, more active and more fertile, producing healthier chicks, all as a result of full-spectrum lighting. The company makes fluorescent tubes and bulbs that fit into all existing fixtures and sockets.

Making (Light) Waves

According to Michael Kroelinger, a professor of design at Arizona State University (Tempe) and a specialist in lighting, science has not documented Ott's research. But, he said, there is a great deal of interest in a field called photobiology the study of full spectrum lighting and its benefits.

One problem with claiming that full spectrum lighting closely mimics sunlight is that sunlight varies, Kroelinger said. "At what time of year is it like sunlight"? No full spectrum fluorescent light can match the ultraviolet output of natural sunlight," said Louise Bauck, an avian veterinarian and director of veterinary services for the Hagen Avicultural Research Institute (St. Laurent, Quebec).

Nor should they, she said, as wavelengths at short range can produce harmful effects. According to Bauck, the only known benefit of full-spectrum lighting is that it converts vitamin D into the active form, vitamin D-3. "There may be additional benefits linked to photoperiodism, such as appetite stimulation and [facts about] reproductive cycles, that are as yet unknown," she said. But Bauck concedes that good lighting helps pet retailers market birds: "Consumers will not be motivated to buy the birds if they cannot see their beautiful colors. Would any pet retailer dream of trying to sell or display tropical fish without powerful lighting to enhance their color and beauty?"

And at least indirectly lighting contributes to good health. Without it, Bauck said, your staff won't spot abnormal droppings, lameness, depressed or "fluffed up" birds. Displaying birds in tiers of cages that are not individually lit is the most common mistake pet store owners make, Bauck said, because birds in the lower rows don't receive sufficient light. Bauck said incandescent bulbs radiate heat that's helpful to birds under a lot of stress, so retailers could use both types of lighting in their shops.

Differing Opinions

Dr. Greg Harrison of Bird Hospital (Lake Worth, Fla.) contends that diet is more critical than lighting to birds' health. "Everyone would like to have their birds in sunlight and rained on once in a while but as long as they get a diet with vitamin D-3, lighting doesn't seem to be that critical."

Harrison is somewhat skeptical of Environmental Lighting Concepts' claim that its lights benefit birds. "The lights work on plants, but they have to be very close 18 to 36 inches away and very few birds are that close to lamps," he said. Harrison, who owns hyacinth macaws himself, said that 75 to 90 percent of all health problems birds suffer are related to malnutrition.

Dr. Donald Holmes, an avian veterinarian in Scottsdale, Ariz., said birds need the calcium that comes from ultraviolet light but has never seen a bird with a calcium deficiency caused by insufficient light. "The calcium ratio is more important than light," he said. There are common sense arguments for giving birds light that's as natural as possible, because most pet birds can't live outdoors, the artificial lighting should be top quality. "Bulbs should be replaced before they burn out because they lose a lot of extremes in the spectrum before they burn out," he said. He recommended establishing a regular replacement program.

Aviary lights should be on 16 hours a day during breeding season because longer periods of light trigger hormonal changes in the birds. Birds that aren't breeding require about the same amount of light as their human companions. Birds are kept in the dark about 12 hours a day when they're not breeding.

Mendelsohn agreed that birds, just like people, need periods of daylight and darkness. "Birds need 8 to 10 hours of light. If you gave your bird four hours a day, it would be happy," he said. "To have a bird under light for 18 hours is too much."

The macaw breeder said they aren't sure whether full-spectrum lights made the difference for the macaws, but does believe that light, either from the sun or a close facsimile, is important to the physical and psychological health of birds and people. "Proper lighting affects all of us,". "If we are indoors for too long, it affects our mood and our temperament and we get cabin fever. Is it possible that a sort of cabin fever could be a contributing factor to plucking or egg laying and baby neglect in breeders?"

So, is lighting or diet the key to healthy birds? The answer, it seems, Is both.

Reprinted by Pretty Birds from PetAge Magazine by Judith Smith

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