# how much sleep?



## hanaflynn (Jun 27, 2010)

My birds sleep in the main room of our apartment. We cover their cage and turn off all the lights at 10, and try to be as quiet as possible and to stay in the other room. But we don't go to sleep until around midnight, so there might be some noise and activity that the birds can hear. We also have to walk through the main room to get to the bathroom. They never get scared by our moving around, but I'm pretty sure they do wake up sometimes. Also, this morning at around 5 I heard them eating and moving around when I walked past the cage. I'm worried that they're not getting enough sleep...all the resources I've read say 10-12 hours, but they don't seem to want that much sleep, since they're up before we are. They don't act tired or sleep during the day, and they're very active.

Thanks for your help!


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## liltweets (Oct 31, 2008)

Hi hannaflynn, do you have a spare bedroom you can roll their cages into or maybe have a sleep cage in another room? Mine sleep in a spare bedroom but if you don't have one then you can do the best you can. Birds 'in the wild' don't get 10-12 hours of uninterrupted sleep (how could they  ) and they do ok. 
I would think as long as you're in another room they would be fine. I'm sure mine, although in a spare bedroom to sleep, hear me/us when we get up and go to the bathroom. Plus, I'm a total night person and never go to bed before 1 or 2 and mine, like yours, act like they are fine during the day.  

Too, mine wake up early and sing but go back to sleep for a while. So I'm sure it all works out. If they were sleepy during the day a lot then something would have to change but I'm sure yours, like mine, are fine since they don't show any problems from hearing things during the night. I don't think the rain forest etc is totally quiet.


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## bird brain (May 30, 2010)

The best thing you can do is to follow the natural day length patterns. If you can put them to bed as the sun is setting and let them wake as it rises then that is ideal. If not then just make sure they get longer nights in winter and shorter in summer. The reason for this is that day length is a major trigger for breeding and moulting, and keeping it constant throughout the year can cause moulting problems, chronic laying etc.


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## luther349 (Apr 5, 2010)

birds are light sleepers at best. and most of the time you cant tell there sleeping. they sleep when there tired and are up when there not. the sheet trick is just so they stay quit so they don't wake you all hrs of the morning. if your birds are new they will adjust to your sleeping habits. they will go eat move around but stay quite at night. but sunrise they will start singing or as soon as light hits the cage. genuinely if your birds are being quit during the day there actually asleep but as soon as theirs any movement they are awake again. eg if you walk up to check if there asleep they will wake up.


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