Radio on for birds home alone?

[ChicoConure]

Why do people leave the radio on for birds during the day? Are they less lonely? And what kind of radio/music do they enjoy?
Thanks BB!

[Jannabellsmom]

I leave a cd called Pet Sounds for Birds on when I leave my tiel home for long periods. It's kind of new age with bird song in it and apparently it was created to soothe them. She does seem to like it and is usually relaxed and playing when I return home. In the car, on the way to the vet, she responded most to spanish music. I think perhaps she was raised with it? However I prefer singersongwriters (like David Gray, Shawn Colvin) so thats what we listen to when I'm here. Her friend thinks she likes metallica, she might. Honestly, she's only 6 months old and I'm not really sure what her favorites are yet.

[DarwinTheSun]

I leave the TV on when we are at work all day, and I leave it on PBS so the learning cartoons are on. I hope that one day I will come home to a reading bird.

[ROYJOY]

in my bird room, during the day, when im at work, i play a jungle sounds cd. dont worry no tigers, just bird sounds and soothing water affects. its a relaxation therapy cd. if it can relax stressed out humans, i thought it would be nice for my birds.

[silvercb67]

I always leave the cartoon channel on for her. :)

[chirpy]

We always leave on the local radio station and I think she enjoys it, she always seems happy when we get home!!

[iggysbirds]

We leave a radio on in each room/area with the birds. We have experimented to see if they like one station better than the other, or if they would rather have the quiet. When we leave the radio off they will scream, chatter and make much more "unhappy" noise then when it is on. As far as the stations none of them seem to like the harder rock/heavy metal type (LOL neither do I!) we do have some that seem to prefer soothing sounds, some that prefer classical, and some prefer instrumental, we have a macaw that will holler unless his radio is on either country or soft rock. For most we try to alternate the music and soothing sounds and they seem to enjoy it. People are around them all day but not always necessarily in the same room or area but we have found it does make a difference in behavior to have the radio on.

As far as my own birds at home, they usually have either cartoons or CMT on and stay calm with either one.

[MicahEspudo]

Tiko goes CRAZY (happy) for anything Regge or Latino :)
Bella likes the top 40 billboard hits :P

[PowerBBS]

We also leave a radio on for our birds. We work M-F 8-5 so we thought that some sort of interactivity (other than dead silence) would be best for our fids. It's more a fear of them getting bored and going into self destructive behavior (like plucking) that we try to find things to keep our fids minds occupied. Of course, toys and the other "birds" themselves make an a good distraction as well.

One of our fids (Frankie) has a cage that is so large that part of it extends into the window of the bird room, so he can actually sit on a perch and watch what goes on outside (which still isn't much). I'm looking at investing some hard cash this summer to get a larger picture window put into our bird room so the others can pear outside as well. The current window is just a tiny one that the others can't really see outside of at all.

I wouldn't call us ideal bird owners as our jobs keep us from home all week and we're limited to the weekends to spend the majority of time with our fids. But we spend most of the time when we are at home with the birds out with us. For sure we are they're "main" entertainment.

I think that the music (or even just noise) does stimulate them. Especially since when the fids are out, they're typically perched on the couch or on us while we're watching TV, so the constant "noise" is something I'm sure they've grown used to. I've never paid much attention as to what types of music they prefer, but I've toyed with the idea of getting some childrens CD's with some fun songs on them; mainly because I would love our birds to learn some fun lyrics. The "radio" per say doesn't really have lyrics that I feel are clear enough for our birds to learn - I think they see heavy metal and most of today's music as literally noise! Currenly our Skoobie Doo is starting to learn to whisle the theme to the Andy Griffith Show. We sure can't wait for them to learn more songs and words.

Thanks for asking... good thread!

[Chico's Mom]

Very interesting thread. I don't leave any music on, only because I leave for work at 4 am and the fids are still asleep, so I don't want to wake them. I know they are awake and hear me moving around, but since it's dark for a couple more hours, I figure they go back to sleep when I leave. When I come home the tv or radio goes on. I haven't seen them react more or less to any particular thing.