# UV light for columbiforms?



## parulidae (Dec 31, 2014)

Hi. This is my first post, I am about to be a ringneck dove owner after a long time of reading and learning about doves (many times on this very site). My question here is about exposure to UV light. For those of you who own exclusively indoor doves and/or pigeons, do you provide them with a light that gives off both UVA and UVB rays? Everything I know about vitamin D synthesis--and everything you can find online--is specific to birds with uropygial (preen) glands. Basically, the secretion from the preen gland is exposed to UV light and the bird ingests the oil during preening. Since doves and pigeons lack this gland, how sure can we be that providing them with external UV light helps with vitamin D synthesis?


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## parulidae (Dec 31, 2014)

*re: Columbiforms and UV light*

Well, after reading a fascinating paper by Tovilla et al. (2009) I found that there is variation in doves in pigeons in the uropygial gland trait. That is, some have the gland and some don't. Fascinating! This still doesn't answer my question about how birds without preen oil synthesize vitamin D but it does seem to suggest that maybe the gland isn't as essential as I thought. 

A link to the paper, if anyone is interested: http://scielo.unam.mx/pdf/azm/v25n3/v25n3a23.pdf


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