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Fluorescent Lights and EMF


HeatherStrella

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I'm curious what your thoughts are on fluorescent lights and emf affecting our pet birds. I've heard that emf can cause you to be irritable. We have fluorescent lights in our kitchen and I usually keep the lights off if AnnaBella is in there with me. Well, today, I didn't even think about it. When I was done washing dishes, I picked her up from her perch and took her to the living room. Just before she took off from my hand, she bit me. She used to bite me for no reason quite often. It's been 6-8 months since she's bitten me for no apparent reason. I'm thinking the lights caused her to become agitated. About a year ago, we were in the kitchen with the lights on and when I went to pick her up, she bit me HARD. She flew to the floor and when I tried to pick her up, she went after me. I had to wait a while before I could pick her up. That day, in that moment, she bit me 5 times in the same place on my hand. My husband suggested it might be the lights. I've kept them off ever since and she seemed to get better. She only goes in the kitchen a couple times a week. There are no other fluorescent lights in our house. We are renting otherwise we'd take them out. Has anyone else had any experiences with this? I did a search of the forums and didn't find anything. Thanks...

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It is completely possible that the flicker rate (60 Hertz) which is due to most home fluorescence's use magnetic ballasts. I built my own avian lights and used electronic ballasts which run at high frequencies and the keen avian eye does not perceive any flickering. It is the light flickering that can agitate them, not the emf. You may not perceive flicker, but birds will. They can see at a much faster frame rate than humans. You know how irritating it is to us when we see lights flicker, multiply that by 10 in a bird. You could replace the kitchen light ballasts with electronic, but since you are renting, you probbaly will not want to spend the money on it. Just leaving them off as you have been would suffice. :)

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does this also apply to the fluorescent curly cue light bulbs? i used one in the past with athena and she became a biting, angry, irritable little green monster!!! i only used it for a little while before changing back to an incandescent bulb and she was quickly back to her self. if this is a problem with the curly cue bulbs, what should we do/use when the "green" laws take away the incandescent bulbs?

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does this also apply to the fluorescent curly cue light bulbs? i used one in the past with athena and she became a biting, angry, irritable little green monster!!! i only used it for a little while before changing back to an incandescent bulb and she was quickly back to her self. if this is a problem with the curly cue bulbs, what should we do/use when the "green" laws take away the incandescent bulbs?

 

I suspect the compact fluorescent you purchased may have been defective in some way. They do have electronic ballasts which should result in no flicker at 10 to 20khz. It could also have to do with the temperature/type i.e daylight, sunlight, warm etc.

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Thank you Dan for that great info. I didn't know about any of that.

 

I am very leary of the Zoo med avian bulb. As you may remember, Talon got a serious 'sunburn' on her eye from when I used that bulb. It cost me lots of $$ in vet bills and even the vet couldn't figure out what happened, he thought it was an eye infection and I had to be mean and put eye drops in her eyes for many days with no success of cure. It was a couple of weeks before I figured out it was the new bulb I used. The bulb WAS more than 12-18 inches away as recommended.

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Thanks for your responses. I wasn't sure what about the fluorescent lights caused birds to be uncomfortable. My husband is going fix the kitchen lights so they don't flicker. He is bugged by the kitchen lights too, he won't even turn them on. Suggesting I watch ghost hunters a bit too much is a bit too rude, you don't know me.

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This is an interesting concept... we have fluorescent lights in our kitchen, and they flicker sometimes, but I've never seen any adverse effects in any of our flock because of them. Tybalt does try to 'help' me a lot when I'm doing the dishes, he'll prance around on the counter; and sometimes I'll drag Marcus' playgym in there too and we'll all hang out while I'm doing chores. But I've never seen any of the birds get weird or aggressive or anything.

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