How do I spend time with them during winter?

[𝕾𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖞𝕻𝖎𝖈𝖆]

A huge issue here in VT is that, during fall, most of spring, and winter, it's dark almost all day. It's dark for 15 hours here (and it's only late fall!), and the remaining hours just happen to be the hours I'm either at school or going to/from school. Yes, I have a 1hr commute each way to get to and from school, which kind of sucks... 2 less hours to spend with the fids.

Anyhow, I have barely any time to spend with them before school (15 mins maybe), and it's almost dark when I arrive home, and the birds are understandably extremely tired and not in a mood to interact. As a result, they are getting fat, since they are too tired to do recall training when I get home. They do fly in the room all day, but it's not really enough... especially since seed is a (small/medium) part of their daily diet.

How do I spend more time with them? I feel really bad about only being able to spend 15mins with them a day, due to the darkness, and I really want to find ways to spend more time with them. These are some of the many times I wish I was homeschooled. LOL. Any suggestions?

 

[clark_conure]

Turn on lights and netflix and chill is what I do. Home lights replace the sun.

 

[𝕾𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖞𝕻𝖎𝖈𝖆]

Turn on lights and netflix and chill is what I do. Home lights replace the sun.

There are two issues with this, sadly

1. Artificial lights in no way replace the sun for my flock. I have 4-5 fairly bright lights on at a time in my room (due to fish tanks and room lighting), and they still get super tired and moody come 4:30 or so (when the sun sets )

2. I don't have a device in my room... which is kind of sad, because it could probably enrich the lives of my birds a LOT.

 

[Cottonoid]

I wake mine up earlier in the morning with light - basically when the time changed I kept the schedule the same, so now instead of getting up at 600 I get up at 500. Cotton is always talking within 5 minutes of the light being on, and the couple times I've made it later he'll sleep in until it comes on (as long as it's dark outside).

He's the same as your birds, even with the time change he's roosting as soon as it's dark outside no matter how bright it is inside. Everyone else will just get up when I do and go to bed when I do. So adding time to the mornings works better for us overall or Cotton would be sleepy all the time on my workdays.

 

[𝕾𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖞𝕻𝖎𝖈𝖆]

I wake mine up earlier in the morning with light - basically when the time changed I kept the schedule the same, so now instead of getting up at 600 I get up at 500. Cotton is always talking within 5 minutes of the light being on, and the couple times I've made it later he'll sleep in until it comes on (as long as it's dark outside).

He's the same as your birds, even with the time change he's roosting as soon as it's dark outside no matter how bright it is inside. Everyone else will just get up when I do and go to bed when I do. So adding time to the mornings works better for us overall or Cotton would be sleepy all the time on my workdays.

Good idea! I will, sadly, have to get up at 4:45 (jeez that's early) in order to take a shower before school, PLUS have about an hr to spend with the birds. It's well worth it, though, and gives me time to finish any homework I need to.

 

[Cottonoid]

It did take me a while to adjust to getting up earlier but now I like it!

 

[𝕾𝖙𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖞𝕻𝖎𝖈𝖆]

It did take me a while to adjust to getting up earlier but now I like it!

That's cool! I woke up super early today, and managed to get a full training session in, but now they're totally zonked, and they're relaxing on the curtain rod listening to some music. I'm currently working on more practical tricks, teaching them all to "wait" (stay), and working on consistent step-ups, especially from the girls. So far it's going really well, and surprisingly, for such hyperactive little birds, they are really good at waiting!