Heating cage for Cockatiels

[2aussiebirds]

Hi, I live in Northern California and have 2 Cockatiels that live indoors. I am a new bird owner. Is it necessary to heat their cage during winter and if so, what is the best and safest way of heating?

[CBT]

How cold does it get inside? I know there are radiant heat panels you can buy or ceramic heat bulbs.

[2aussiebirds]

Hi, The temperature in the house gets into the low 40's.

[catschair]

Yowza! You must sleep under a lot of blankets. I don't think it gets that cold in my back yard.

[birdlady49]

The Gabriel Foundation, a rescue group in Colorado, allows their birds to fly into their outdoor aviaries if the temps are 45 degrees or higher. But they've gradually acclimated to those temps.

A heating pad set to low under the cage, with a towel in between the pad and the cage, might be a good idea for those nights when your indoor temps go below 60. At the same time, cover the cage on all but the front side.

Personally, I don't like my cockatiels to experience temperatures below 65 degrees indoors.

[tielfan]

The usual advice is that temperatures that are comfortable for you will be comfortable for the bird. It's surprisingly difficult to find specific temperature ranges, but a couple of sites specified 50 degrees as the bottom of the range. You might want to get a heat lamp and train it on the cage at night (in a nonhazardous way of course). Arrange it so the birds can choose how close they want to get to it.

[PyscoFalcon]

That's pretty warm so they should be fine. they do adapt. The average temp in here is 24 degrees with heating but it's about 15 atm and dropping drasticaly at night (out side frost on ground)

Yet my birds and dog are much warmer than me. However if you see them shivering then move them to a warmer part of the house. I've had to move my old birds to warmest part as they've started to feel cold more.

Also feed them warm food like Beak Bucket or a warm eggfood mash.

[ROYJOY]

you folks from carolina, and the UK are talking in two different systems of temperature reading. 24' in the states is below freezing. psycofalcon, you are useing centigrade.

i keep mine at 70' fahrenheit, thats 21.1 in centigrade. any lower than that is too cold for me.

[PyscoFalcon]

lol in that case it's normally about 40 fahrenheit here at night and 50 during day.

When it hit's the 80s in Summer I melt!

[2aussiebirds]

Thank-you everyone for the advice. I am going to try a thermo-perch. This is a heated perch that is supposed to keep them warm. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has used one.