Aviary Update

A lot seems to be happening with my birds at the moment. The first of Red Rumped Parrots chicks has emerged from the nesting box.

Also the Indian Ringneck chicks wont be far off. This year I have got two Albino and one Blue. My pair of Albion and Turquoise (Pastel Blue) has produced to date Albino, Blue, Creamino and Turquoise.

I have found my hand rearing of the baby Bourke Parrot a little taxing on the sleep side. I need to get set up better with keeping him warm (a heat pack is simply too much work). I going to purchase a plastic container with stick on thermometer and heat pad. It's too hard constantly looking after heat and food. 

Emergency Hand Raring

Hand raring a parrot is something I always wanted to do but knew it wasn't going to be easy so it has always been shelved in the too hard basket. Until unforeseen circumstances has forced me to learn how.

On Sunday morning I found one of my Bourke parrot chicks on the floor of the aviary dead. The other chick still alive in the nesting box, I gave the female the benefit of the doubt and hoped she would still look after the other chick. Unfortunately that afternoon I returned to find the other chick on the aviary floor (I presumed dead as it wasn't moving). I actually took about half an hour to go into the aviary to remove the chick to only find it alive!

I was totally unprepared to be looking after a helpless chick and was lucky that the chick had been fed recently having a full crop. I decided to go with a heat pack to to keep him warm, waking a couple of time during the night to reheat it. I was not expecting him to make it through the night but he did.

The next day I took him to work with me and pick up some parrot hand rearing formula. I fed him using a tea spoon bent into a flute and he ate greedily. I was expecting to have most issues with this part but he filled his crop quickly. 

He is only a week old today and he is healthy other than a red mark on his neck where the mother removed him from the nesting box. He seems to be a little survivor.

Red Rumped Parrot - Colour Mutations

As my pair of Red Rumped Parrots is true or as would appear in the wild and I was not expecting any colour mutations. However one of them must be a split Lutino as I have two Lutino chicks.

Bourke Parrot Chick

I got a shock this morning to find my Rosa Bourke Parrot had hatched a chick. She has always laid eggs and incubated but never hatched before.

Persistence has really paid off with my Bourkes finally. Over the years I have had two pair and although I have been told they are relatively easy to breed I have had no luck with my Bourkes until today.

It should be noted that I offered her two breeding boxes. One with non toxic saw dust and one with peat moss as the nesting material. She chose the one with the saw dust and as seen in the picture emptied most of it out.

Green Checked Conure - Plucking Update

My female Green Cheeked Conure has replicated her breeding activity from last year. Laying at least three eggs and the removing from the nesting box. She now seems to be over wanting to nest at all. I now almost certain that she is past the age of being able to breed successfully. 

New entry to the Galah's nesting box

The Galah's have decided to create their own entry to the nesting box deciding the one I made was less than sufficient. No eggs yet though.

Other nesting activity

I have provided nesting boxes to both my Bourke Parrots and the trio of Indian Ringnecks. Not expecting much from either as the Bourke female that consistently lays eggs and incubates but never hatches chicks and I only believed that I had one Indian Ringneck female (Creamino "Milly") and she is only a year old and too young however my Blue Ringneck "Boe Boe" that I was believed to be a male from it previous owner is actually female!! She has laid one egg but she is still immature a results may not be optimum.  

Red Rump Parrot - Progress

The Red Rumped Parrot have actually hatched five live chicks. Two have since died (they were very small) but the other three seem to be progressing well.

One advantage of having them located on the back veranda is that I can monitor there behavior more closely as kitchen looks out on to their cage. I noticed very early on the female stop sleeping in the nesting box and I actually thought that she may have abandoned her young but not the case. Each breed seems to have its only little differences in rearing young.  

Green Cheeked Conure - Feather Plucking

After last seasons Green Cheeked Conure not producing any young my Green Cheeked Conure female lost a number of feathers on her chest. Although she did recover to some degree she never really got all her feathers back.

This season she has shown interest in nesting but she has now lost all her feathers on her chest. Not sure if its a plucking thing or age related issue but she is spending a lot of time in the nesting box and has yet to lay any eggs.

I'm at a loss of what to do with her.

She took some time to produce her first clutch for me of four chicks and then three chicks for two more seasons after that. I'm not sure how old she is but I've had the pair for at least seven years.