Sweetheart is a pink-eyed, opaline fallow Rosy Bourke parakeet hand fed last year. The pale pink and white bird behind him is being hand fed this year. I hope it will be a hen that I can put with him. The feathers under her chin are wet from just being fed. The 2011 hen Sweetheart chose died in an accident and he rejected another one offered to him. The bird above is from the same parents as his first hen, so I hope he will accept her...if it's a her.
Below is another photo of the two of them. I tried introducing them today, but the young bird is still returned to the tissue box inside another cage where she currently lives with two other young Bourkes. When she's eating on her own, I'll let her move to his cage and hope they bond.
My hand fed Rosie with her clutch of four. Photo was taken today. She's a good mother who has raised many birds over the last three years. I banded her two smallest this morning, so all four have a silver identification band showing us as breeders, and a colored band to identify they came from Rosie and Pretty Boy.
Below are Rosie's four babies as they were about 12 days ago. Small and clustered together.
Flame and Fuchsia are on five eggs, recently laid. It's her third clutch this year. Had not intended to let anyone have a third clutch this summer, but broke down and allowed Fuchsia to. I'm hand feeding hers from the previous clutch to ensure they'll be very tame.
So far, this year none of our birds have produced pink-eyed baby birds. Last year there were some in every clutch. Is it a difference in the weather, I wonder? Nah...it was a cold summer last year and has been a cold summer this year too. Diet is the same. Wonder what it was, especially since a young man nearby, who has a pair of Bourkes from us, called last year to say his birds' first clutch consisted of four babies, every one with pink eyes! He wondered if that was normal and their eyes would darken over time. Nope. Not usual, and they will stay pink.
Peace & Blessings.
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