Parrot diet / Feeding

I feed all the birds fruit & vegetables daily. I use carrot, apple, lettuce, beans, pear, broccoli, cauliflower, stone fruit and melon mostly. I also commonly use frozen mixed vegetables as well. The things I have tried that they have not been interested in are potato and orange.

Every few days I put grass in for the grass parrots (Bourke's, Scarlett Chested). The Princes parrots also seem to like the grass but it doesn't interest the Conures or the Ringnecks. They really like when the grass is in seed and milk thistle.

Things I know are not good for bird are avocado (toxic) and soft breads can cause suffocation due to the bread getting stuck in there beaks.

I always keep seed in feeders to supplement there fresh fruit and vegetable diet. I will occasionally use plain dry biscuits as a treat.

Scarlett Chested Parrots

I have had another single female baby at the end of last year but thing have been a little quite since I lost my older female a few months ago. I have also separated my other breeding female at the moment as she has lost a lot of feathers which always seems to occurs at least a little around breeding season. I will introduce her back into the cage in a few weeks when she has grow back some feathers and the weather is a little warmer.

Green Cheeked Conures

The Green Cheeked Conures reside in their breeding box of a night. Inside the box there is some down feathers but no eggs to date. I will have to invest in getting them DNA tested.

Jap Quail - General

My female quail died a few months ago, the expected life span of a Jap quail is about two to three years so it wasn't too unexpected. After the loss of my female I decided to buy five more quails, a pair for each section of my aviary to help keep the floor clean.

I have found they only tend to lay eggs in the warmer months.

I have also had a quail "scalp" another quail. I'm told a male will do it to another male. I separated the scalped quail that looked quite ill but he recovered well a know you can't even tell the quail was injured after all the feather grew back.

Princess Parrots (Polytelis alexandrae)

Sexing - The male generally has a longer tail and a more blue underside. The male displays for the female by swinging his head around.

Noise - This quite little bird in the pet shop can be very loud when it wants too but as all my medium sized parrots when first introduced into the aviary they seemed very loud and later settled down once they were used to the environment. I'm hoping this will be the same with my Princess Parrots.

General Care - I chose the Princess Parrot due to its gentle nature and thus being able to be housed with my smaller grass parrots. I like the idea of a mixed aviary with different species of parrot, I was tossing up between the Princess Parrot and the Kakariki. Neither my ringnecks or conures seem to like grass at all but the Princess parrots definitely like it.

Breeding - Only having just acquired the Princess parrots, I will wait until they are little more familiar to aviary before putting in a box.

Ringneck Parrot

My Indian Ringneck Parrots "Nippet" (Albino) & "Nelly" (Pastel Blue) have bonded well. Nelly also sat all through August on her
first clutch. Out of her three eggs, I found one dead chick and the others eggs were broken with no signs of any further chicks. She
seemed like a tentative mother only coming out occasionally to feed. Nippet also joined her in the box a couple of times I witnessed.

They usually only have one clutch per year so I maybe waiting until next year for more results. Normal incubation is 21 to 24 days for ringnecks.

Bourke Parrot

My female Bourke Parrot signaled her interest to breed by laying an egg on the ground and trying to sit on it. Interestingly enough the Scarlet Chested parrots and the quails also seemed at stages to be taking turns sitting on the egg in the corner of the cage.

I introduced nest boxes, she laid three eggs and sat on them for the whole month of August. She left the nest with the three eggs unhatched and I found them to be infertile when I removed them. Perhaps I need a new male.