by Pajarita » Tue Jan 12, 2021 11:01 am
[ [/quote]I don't know where you read that, but many people in England (where winter is usually down to about 5C) have outdoor unheated enclosures for many parrot species and they're fine. They say humans like a room temperature of 21C, but we wouldn't die if we lived in a tent at -10C.
It's not that they would drop dead, it's that their average lifespan is greatly shortened - same as would happen with people living in a tent at -10C all their lives. Species evolved to 'fit' perfectly into their natural habitat and, although you can keep a tropical bird at lower temperatures, the bird will not last as long as it could because the body would be under constant physical stress trying to keep warm without the natural mechanisms given to species that evolved to live under lower temperatures. Nature does not give an animal the way to fight something that is not present in its natural habitat. Contrary to what people believe, species do not get accustomed to environmental conditions that are not the ones they evolved to live under - it takes domestication to do that and domestication takes thousands of goal-oriented and manipulated genetic engineering to achieve a change in their genetic make-up so you can keep a polar bear in the heat but the poor thing will be suffering all the time and die young same as you can keep a giraffe in the cold but it will suffer and not last long. This is not my opinion, mind you, it's a scientific fact.
As to where I read about the 'safe' temperature for parrots... well, as with everything else for which we don't have any 'good' answer, I go to nature and simply look at the temperature ranges in the geographical zone they originated from (which is the same thing that zookeepers do when they design any species enclosure). I don't know what species of parrots you have but, for example, if we were talking about a Sun conure, I would look at the temperature range of the Guyanas (between 26 and 28 C), if we were talking about a Senegal, I would look at the temperature range of West Africa (18 to 26 C), like that... There are parrots that do manage to acclimate to temperatures well outside their range, namely quakers, but one should not use them as an example for parrots because they are quite unique (so unique, in fact, that they are sui generis). Wild IRNs do live in London even though there are nights in the winter when the temperature does go down to 1 or 2 C but nobody knows what is their average lifespan is under those conditions (there are no studies done tagging the birds).