lighting.

Just wanted to see if there was a late and great bulb out there that people use for their birds. I use a reptile bulb from my lps. I use a standard compact fluorescent screw in lighting system. Cheers

I'm curious as to why you are using CFLs and why reptile bulbs?

I'm lucky enough to have a deck & carport, so can usually get my guys in the sun 3-4 times a week, so only have 2-4' backup fixtures. The carport's a triple & even in 90° temperatures there will be a breeze through it...we're on a slope & there's very seldom dead air around us.....

I'm a member of the Over-the-hill-gang, so am also curious as to what "lps" stands for.....I looked through my acronym database, but couldn't find anything I thought was relevant?

Local pet store. They spend a good deal enjoying the outdoors but my house is a bit on the dark side so I use cfl's over each cage to keep them lit. I use the reptile bulbs because they claim to provide better uvb light. Am I doing it wrong?

[ame="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H46owcabAdM"]The Importance of Ultra Violet Light in Birds - YouTube[/ame]

Dr Becker is very much involved with birds including rehabbing the wild ones.

ACE209 said:

Local pet store. They spend a good deal enjoying the outdoors but my house is a bit on the dark side so I use cfl's over each cage to keep them lit. I use the reptile bulbs because they claim to provide better uvb light. Am I doing it wrong?

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Thank you Ace, for allowing me to add to my acronym database, though I will admit to never having fallen victim to the messaging shorthand that instant messengers like.....I prefer the traditional, that's both understandable and legally acceptable.....

Actually my curiosity was why reptile CFLs, when there really is no difference, no matter what a manufacturer or vendor might claim. There is only so much surface area inside those little things to paint with phosphors and basically, the makeup and amount of the phosphor coating is what creates specific light spectrums, so, if there's not enough room to paint/coat the small amount of inside surface area, all the fancy advertising and all the salesman's spin is not going to make it happen.....

While my background is in engineering and construction, it wasn't 'til the late 70s that I was kind of forced to get real acquainted with lighting.....I was involved with a number of exhibition celebrity, pro and celebrity-pro tennis events for various charity organizations, where we would go into different venues, gymnasiums, fieldhouses and when they were constructed, several multipurpose facilities.....keep in mind that back then there were no indoor tennis arenas/stadiums, heck, Rod Laver, Roy Emerson and the duffers from the 50's & 60s hauled around their own canvas tarp tennis court to do the original indoor exhibitions, where they zippered the sections together & roped them off to keep tension on the court surface.....bad ball bounces were overlooked.....

When I got involved, national sponsor $$$ were coming in & some big name tennis playing celebrities had joined these events.....the problem was, that while these various venues might be able to be converted for a one or two night celebrity dog & pony show, they did not have lighting suitable for tennis.....

We had two celebrity players who were virtually night blind and required at least 180 foot candles of light across the whole court, that is a lot of light, think road construction lighting at night with those big generators and telescoping 1000 watt lamp assemblies.....none of the buildings we went into back then could provide that lighting specification, so, in a week's time we had copies of the light readings that the existing building lighting could provide, for all the buildings we would be going into for the next 8 months...also keep in mind that there was no internet or digital communication.....my office ordered phone books for every one of those cities and/or surrounding cities and we knew where we could buy or rent what we needed.....the moral of this little tale is that you can't rely on the advertising/marketing hype of a vendor or manufacturer.....if you want it right, you often have to do your own research. In our case, we never had a player embarrassed due to missing a shot they couldn't see.

There was a recent thread about lighting on the forums & there have been several in the past couple of years.....there's a lot of reading & maybe a lot to try and understand and if you're still not a believer, there are some questions to pose to your favorite manufacturer/vendor about how they arrive at and/or validate their particular readings/theories/hypotheses.....

Your CFLs will do what you're using them for Ace, but for those thinking those little lights will generate what they think they will for our feathered friends.....they can't and neither can these new LED lights that are being hyped, at least not for birds, for fish, I don't know.....

I realize there is no substitute for the sun. But something has to be better than nothing. I mean if I where to use a generic light bulb from say walmart your saying I'd get the same results? I know when I had corral in my reef system if I used anything but those expensive high output compact fluorescent lights my corral wouldn't survive not even the less expensive brands I wouldn't get the same results. I am not a lighting expert by any means, but I would like to provide the best I can for my feathered friends. Like I said previously my house is on the darker side I don't have many windows so I feel the need to provide a little extra light to them and they do seem happier and more social since I added the lights. I have also seen what lack of proper lighting does to reptile skeletal structure in iguanas especially. We see a ton of iguanas at my practice who suffer from rubber jaws and the owner provides plenty of calcium but the iguana cannot absorb it because of the lack of d3. So I've first hand seen the before and after on adding uvb lighting.

I guess what I'm trying to understand is what should I be using rather than my cfl's?

Several years ago, when I was doing a lot of research on bird lighting, I met a veterinarian from the UK, Frances Baines, he has since retired, but he and fellow herp lovers do independent research and maintain the website UV Guide UK - Ultraviolet Light for Reptiles - UVB reptile lighting on test it is always evolving & may have parts of it in update mode.....they've never had a really quick website, but every time I've looked around it, there's usually something new.

Unlike in the U.S., advertising in Europe is held to a different standard, you can't blatantly lie about what your products cannot do, but as far as the best UV information for herps, I think it is on that site.

I just looked at the site for the first time in probably a year, I've been otherwise preoccupied, and on the front page of their website there is this headline:

Special Report : Eye problems with some high UVB fluorescent compact lamps and tubes

I have not yet read the attached article, but figure it's not supportive of the mentioned CFLs.....

For the best information on lighting products, I would have to say that would be from
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, one of the top engineering universities in the U.S. and its Lighting Research Center can answer virtually any question on lighting you might have, but I'm sure they would shy away from providing you an answer to what would be the best individual product.

They do however, give you the information about where & how the industry skits factual truisms and what a given light source, incandescent, fluorescent, Cfls, etc.
can and cannot generate in reality.....the individual reader must make their own, informed decision as to what would be the best item for their needs and that of their feathered friends.

There are studies being done on cold lighting (LEDs and other solid state light technologies), so I'm sure there will be more factual information on those systems forthcoming, to stay updated, I might look for information on "solid state lighting."

There's a lot of reading about the various synthetic lighting sources from here: About the LRC | Lighting Research Center

For more info about full spectrum lighting and companion birds, Patrick Thrush is considered by many, to be the best informed aviculturist on the subject and while a lot of his writings on the subject were first published back in the late 90s, you have to realize that the lighting industry has not changed very much in the last 20 years and has pretty much directed how the consumer relates to its products and what the consumer understands or more properly believes about their products.....in the United States there is no requirement for "truth in advertising."

As for us parrot lovers, we're but a very, very, very small percentage of that industry's revenue & I seriously doubt that we will see serious investment in true lighting technology for birds in the foreseeable future.....

Sorry for the book, but like rehabbing animals, there is no short answer.....

It's a waste of money as they're all false advertising!!!! There's really no true full spectrum bulbs for birds just yet. Natural sunlight would be the only option!!!! I did a ton of studies on it awhile back but I have lost that site where a respectable veterinarian tested the bulbs and came out with nothing. It was the only truth I've read so far other then what weco posted!!!

Thanks guys... so there is no viable alternative?

Nope, none at all!!! Sun light is your only option until they come up with something else!