Bourke Parrot / Protective Mother

Originally I thought my Bourke hen may have even abandoned her eggs as she was not often in the nest box but now she has turned into a fiercely protective mother, squawking and lunging at me during nest inspections. She is the most protective bird I have had to date.

Indian Ringneck Chick Progress

The Indian Ringneck chick are growing very quickly as all birds do, the pictures are the growth over a four day period. I have handled the larger one, I suspect it will be a darker colour (blue or turquoise) due to it eye colouring. I'm thinking about hand rearing them when they get pin feathers with the help of my wife.

Breeding Season

I'm still hopeful for a fourth Indian Ringneck chick and Nelly's biggest clutch as the four egg is yet to be pushed to the side and is still covered by the three other chicks.

The Bourke female is spending more and more time in her breeding box and is up to five eggs now. It seems my abandonment concerns could have been premature.

The Gouldian finches are now both going in and out of the box, no eggs to date.

Indian Ringneck - Third Chick

I love this time of year so much excitement and anticipation. My third Indian Ringneck chick was either hatched yesterday or this morning with one more egg that has yet to be pushed to the side.

My Bourke Parrots three eggs are pushed to the center of the box and partially covered by nesting material. The hen spends most of the time out of the box including night, I would say she has abandoned her eggs but she still goes in the box and the eggs are now grouped together.

For the first time a few day ago I witnessed for time my Gouldian finch hen in the nesting box. She seems to have worked the dry grass at the back of the box but no eggs yet.

Surprise!! New chicks

I received a pleasant surprise today with the discovery of two new Indian Ringneck chicks upon a nest inspection. I was expecting to be waiting another couple of weeks. One is clearly larger than the other and I'm hoping that the other two egg will equal two more chicks over the next few days. 

Nesting Update

I returned from my holiday at which time I had my sister looking after my birds (when I'm away I have worry that people looking after my birds will keep up my standards but she did an excellent job), to find my Indian Ringnecks now have four eggs and my Bourke Parrots now have three. My female Indian Ringneck spends the night in the breeding box but is rarely in there at other times and my Bourke female that seemed to be mostly in her box sitting has been spending a lot of time out of it recently including of a night, it is her first clutch of eggs since I have had her hopefully she has not abandoned them.

I also completed a full clean of the aviary on my return including new branches which I placed to obscure the entrance of the Green Cheeked Conures box.

Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary

A holiday to the Gold Coast has afforded our family to visit the Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary.

I has hoping to see more parrots but there was a good cross section of birds. The free flight show I found excellent and included a Blue and Gold Macaw, Green Winged Macaw and a Black Cockatoo.

I was really hoping for a bigger and better walk in aviary than Symbio and although it had bigger aviaries it didn't necessarily have the amount or variety of birds.

The Fig Parrots were very cool and definitely something I had not seen before. 

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...