Daylight Savings Time, how does it affect your parrot?
Like me you may be getting ready to see the time change. That is unless you are lucky enough to live somewhere that does not change the hours of the day depending on the time of year. I freely admit I am not a fan of time change. However if there is a change, I much prefer the extra daylight time.
The time changing can it make me a little grumpy for the first week of change though, and it often makes a few of my flock rather grumpy too. Just because the clock says it's time for bed doesn't mean all the birds are ready just yet for bedtime. Feeding times can be a little tricky too. No matter whether the human time springs forward or falls back, nature's bird time says breakfast is served on their time because according to my birds (and my little dog), meal time is non-negotiable.
It usually takes at least a week if not two, for most of my birds to settle into the new timetable. However, I do have a few such as Cookie Cockatoo and Cosmo Macaw in particular, who refuse to change their time no matter what the humans do. They are on nature's time all the time year-round and I have learned to live with it, or at least I try to.
Sometimes those extra daylight hours that come with spring and a time change, can also cause some birds to enter into a hormonal breeding frame of mind. So keep that in your mind if your bird seems a little more nippy, or a little more clingy than usual.
Instead of changing their timetable for a whole hour, sometimes making 10 minute daily changes over a course of a week or two before or after the time actually changes, can make it a little easier for the birds to adjust.
Of course, you may be lucky and your bird goes with the flow and isn't bothered at all. Or, you may be like me and well trained to respond to the parrots and not to the hour of the clock as we spring forward into warmer and brighter spring days.
