Breeding Boxes / Nesting Boxes

I have decided to put in the nesting boxes much the same time as last year. 

Due to the loss of my female Princess Parrot I shifted the male Princess Parrot into the grass bird aviary, this has afforded me the room to shift "Turk" my spare Indian Ringneck male to a separate section of the aviary to insure he is not related to the offspring of "Nippet" and "Nelly". This will allow me to pare him a young female.

I have used the same box as last year with non toxic wood shavings. They have already emptied some of the shaving onto the ground.

I placed two medium boxes in the grass bird aviary with parrot nesting material although I only have the one pair of Bourke Parrots in the aviary I believe it is beneficial to provide a choice of nesting place. I will introduce the finch box for the Gouldian Finches soon as well.

As usual the nesting box remains in the Green Cheeked Conures cage as it a roosting spot. I will provide a fresh branch in the coming weeks to provide cover for the entrance as I believe this was my good luck charm last year.

Cat Trap

After the upsetting loss of couple more of my birds including my female Princess Parrot which got sick and died a few day latter (also I believe as a result of cat attack). I have deiced to invest in a trap.

I have been using sardines to bait the trap, well just putting them in the trap to get the cat used to entering the trap without fear. The trap has had the sardines removed every second night and have set it only once which ended up catching my dog Leroy the following morning.

Roosters!!!

My bantam Rhode Island Red chicks both turned out to be roosters, they seemed to both change over night with development in crest and of course crowing. My first rooster started crowing and after looking at him I was pretty sure that the other was a hen but after getting rid of him within a few days the next one had started crowing as well.

I got rid of both roosters to keep the neighbours from getting upset, I have a fairly noisy hobby and I don't want to push the boundaries. The hens have started laying eggs and the chooks have provided good management of dropped seed and vegetable matter from the parrots as I alternate from section to section. They have also become an alarm sometimes for the cat...