Bourke & Splendid Update on Switching Mates

BOURKES:

This post is mostly about disappointments, however, keep in mind that we did just band baby Bourke #25…so there is also much good news for 2010.

Currently, Brandy is on three eggs with Rory. He never produced fertile eggs with Bella and we hope he does better with Brandy. She is the hen who had a baby savaged and others injured. I had to rescue all her babies with Chitter and hand feed them. Now, Chitter is with Bella (Rory’s former mate). Chitter and Bella are successfully raising one baby, the only fertile egg that Bella has ever laid. This baby is still in the nest, but fully feathered and has never had any injury. So, Chitter and Bella may prove to be a happy, successful pair with Chitter exonerated.

If Rory is also unable to fertilize Brandy’s eggs, then perhaps she is the best hen for him to have, since it is beginning to look like she is the guilty party who injured her young. Brandy is currently on two eggs with more expected. She came from one of our best breeding pairs. They were wonderful parents. One of Brandy’s hand fed daughters is my favorite bird…very affectionate, very intelligent and so sweet. Genetics isn’t reliable at predicting what a bird’s (or a person’s) personality is going to be like.

Sugar is back on three eggs. She and Spice have had two previous clutches that were fertile, but did not hatch. She seems devoted to incubating her eggs, so I don’t believe the problem is that they got cold. Must be something else. Spice is a hand fed Normal Bourke. Rosie, my favorite hand fed Bourke hen, is very interested in him. If none of Sugar’s eggs hatch this time around, I may replace Sugar with Rosie. Sugar isn’t tame, and for that matter, isn’t as pretty as Rosie. I could put Sugar with Spicy’s father, Bing Jr., as his hen, Willow, is older than Bing Jr. and she’s no longer interested in brooding.

Decisions, decisions, decisions.

SPLENDIDS:

If you’ve been following this blog, you know that our two pairs of Splendids haven’t produced any youngsters for the past two years.

And so, this year I swapped Splendid mates. Although Rainbow and Rivka were observed attempting to mate, her eggs were not fertile with him either. It’s so disappointing! The other new pair took longer to become friendly with each other. The hen, Jewel, has entered the nest box and Rainbow Jr. has been feeding her. However, no attempts at mating have been observed. It seems unlikely that she will hatch her eggs either.

There is one other recourse available, short of finding new Splendids, which I haven’t been able to do. We have two extra Splendid males. Unfortunately, Flip is unable to fly due to a “window accident” as a very young bird … hence his name … after his accident, when he tried to fly with his injured wing, he’d flip over. The other male, Rudy, is one I traded for. He came from the same breeder who provided the hens and the breeder can’t tell me whether the three birds are, or are not, related to each other. I had hoped to acquire another hen for Rudy, but it has never happened. I’m considering putting him with one of these hens and see what happens. They just might accomplish something.

Decisions, decisions.

Looking ahead to future posts:

• Budgies make great kids’ pets. How to be sure the Budgerigar parakeet you buy is a young one.

• Photos of intricately carved egg shells.

More on Parenting

As I watched my male Splendid taking a bath this morning, ...of course he finished before I got the camera... I thought about how caring he's always been to his mates. Yes, mates. He's had three.

Rainbow was hatched to Merlin & Millet almost six years ago. He's now the patriarch of our Splendid Scarlet-chested parakeets (I know, it's either or, but I like the play on words). His first hen, Jewel, produced three lovely male Splendids. With her 2nd clutch a few months later, I noticed that her first two eggs seemed larger than typical. One morning, with no warning, she was dead. A third egg, even larger than the first two was stuck. She died of egg binding. (In another post, I'll try to talk about what can be done to save the hen, although I've posted on it before, it's important).

Maybe this is the best place to mention that Bourke hens go right back to the nest and lay more eggs as soon as their offspring are fledged...sometimes even sooner. In my experience, Splendids allow themselves more time between clutches.

Rainbow's 2nd hen, Jewel-2,  seemed to please him and he fed her, but they never mated. Her eggs for the past two years have been infertile. So have the eggs of a Splendid hen in with Rainbow's son from Jewel. For that reason, I swapped hens this year. Rainbow now has Rivkah, and Rainbow Jr. has Jewel-2.

Rainbow and Rivkah have hit it off and appeared to be mating on several occasions, or at least attempting to. I'm hopeful everything came together as it was meant to. Smile.

My experience with Splendids is that the males spend a lot of time with their hens in the nest box, encouraging and feeding them. When the eggs hatch, they help feed the babies and spend almost as much time with the nestlings as does their mother.

With Bourkes it seems to be different. Male Bourke parakeets remain outside the box, apparently guarding it from predators. They will stand on a perch or hang from the opening to feed the hen who comes to the opening. She usually only leaves to defecate, maybe grabbing a drink and possibly a quick bite or two. But, she primarily depends on her mate for sustenance while she's brooding.

What the two varieties of parakeets do have in common is that the males of both species check out the nest box days before she enters it. A male will make several reconnaissance trips before his hen ventures into the box. 

An exception to this rule for Bourkes is with my male, Chitter, who enters his hen's box while she's on eggs. He is also the father of the babies I've had to pull and hand feed to protect them from one of their parents harming them. It seems likely that it's him since he is also exhibiting unusual behavior by entering the box while his hen is on eggs. Most male Bourkes won't help feed their young directly until after they leave the box. He feeds the hen and she feeds the babies until they leave the box. Then he takes over the majority of their feedings, although she still helps.

Disclaimer: Every bird has a distinct personality all their own. What I've said here may not always prove true. It is my observation of my own birds; currently, six Splendids and 22 Bourke parakeets.  

Peace & Blessing to You and Your Birds! 

Keep Smiling!

Baby Birds with Problem Parents

Neversink7 asked, "...have you ever had problems with splendid or bourke parents pulling the feathers off of their babies?"  His Splendid parents are misbehaving and he wonders if a nutritional deficiency could be a possible culprit.

I don't think nutrition of any kind would cause this. There are plenty of feathers available that fall off the birds naturally and I often see my birds "playing" with fallen feathers, as well as routinely preening themselves. They can chew on all the feathers they want to, so why take them from their babies?

I've never had Bourkes pull feathers, except for the incident with one pair savaging a baby. With that pair, I always rescue and handfeed the young almost as soon as they hatch. I believe the male wants to breed again and dispatching the babies will allow that. I recently put the hen on "rest" and moved the male to another hen whose eggs have always been infertile. She's now on fertile eggs and I'm interested to see what happens. I may end up handfeeding her young too, if this male is actually the "bad" parent.

[UPDATE: After the cock was successful with another hen and a good dad, it turned out that the mother of the brood was to blame. Although she could hatch her eggs, she would not raise the babies and would begin savaging them as soon as all the eggs hatched. I still have two of her offspring (a brother and sister) that were hand fed and are wonderful parents with their mates. Both are very sweet natured. Their mother eventually developed an odd "droop" and died a few days later. I've wondered if she had a brain tumor that made her crazy or something. Also, she was sold and came back to me after her first clutch with a different mate also died. I don't know what her history was for the two years she was away from me.]
 

My experience with Splendids is different.  Many years ago I bought my 1st pair and the hen's back was bare. I was unfamiliar with Splendids, but didn't like the fact that the male pulled the feathers from her back. She was sweet and tame, but he was wild...drew blood the first time I caught him.

Their first brood died. They didn't seem to know to feed them. Their second clutch of three did fine and I still have a male from that clutch. He has NEVER pulled feathers from his mate(s) and neither has his son (the grandson of the 1st bird). None of my Splendids have ever pulled feathers from their young. I was happy to let that original bird go as a lone caged bird to someone else who enjoyed watching and listening to him.

To Neversink7:  How many clutches have your problem birds had? I'd limit them to two or three, with a few months in between. Maybe they're tired of feeding and caring for their young...? Sounds like you are doing the right thing by pulling and handfeeding them. 

Another thought ... if the young birds are fledged and able to eat on their own before the parents begin pulling the feathers, in the wild they would try to chase them off to live elsewhere. In a small cage or aviary, they can't leave. Is only one parent feeding and the other pulling feathers? That seems likely. I remove my own young birds as soon as the father begins to "chase" them from their perches. By then, they're eating okay and he wants them gone.

Past experience with Finches:  I once had a beautiful pair of Zebra finches. The hen was all white and the male was pied. They produced gorgeous babies with a "saddle" of color over the backs of white birds. Very pretty. However, about the 3rd year the male began to throw newly-hatched babies out of the nest. I'd put them back, and he'd throw them out again. He continuously did this and wouldn't raise them any longer. They'd produce another clutch and he'd do the same thing. My belief is that he felt he'd produced enough progeny and only wanted to continuously mate, not work to raise young. I gave him away to a bird store.

Past experience with button quail:  As a kid, I had a pair of cute button quail that hatched a large clutch. I

was shocked one day to go out to the aviary and find half the clutch bloodied and dead. Apparently, a male button quail will kill his sons after a certain age ... Sad. I don't know if every one of them does this, but enough do, that babies shouldn't be left with their dad for very long. Perhaps removing male button quail as soon as their eggs hatch is wise.

This sounds like it's the males of the species that savage their young. That might be typical, but I did have a female budgerigar parakeet who visited the nestboxes of other hens and killed their young. After she'd done this more than once, I finally caught her in a box that wasn't hers and realized who was doing it. She was "dispatched" and I never had another problem in that aviary.

There must be good birds and bad birds, just as there are good dogs and bad dogs, good people and bad people.

Tuesday Baby Photos

Homely little 8-day-old baby Bourke parakeet. The blur by his beak comes from throwing his head back suddenly. You can see right through their stomach and craw at this age.  He is out of the nest in order to be banded. Banding usually takes place at 7-9 days. He's #16. The band reads EGL is for our aviary, OR for Oregon, and 10 represents hatched in 2010.

The additional black plastic band tells me who his parents are after he's grown and on his own. In this case, Bonnie & Clyde.

The tiny lid holds mineral oil that helps the bands to slide on easily. A flat toothpick aids in getting the fourth and smallest toe out of the band after it's first slipped over the three longest toes.

We've already had as many baby Bourkes this year as we had all of 2009 (it wasn't a good year). The beginning of 2010 is starting to be a wonderful year for baby Bourkes. This little fellow has a sibling in the nest, and three other hens are currently on fertile eggs.

Just to prove this little baby is alive and well ... Here are some of his older siblings. They like to fly and land on me in all sorts of places. Fortunately, in this photo at least, not on my head!

Choosing Names

I talked a bit about naming birds in the past, and thought I'd elaborate. I want to remember the parentage of birds kept as breeders. We keep written records online, however, their names are a quick reference. Thus, I choose names that help me remember lineages. As the flock grows, it's easier for me to keep track of them than for my husband who is less involved, so a small 3" x 5" file card with their names goes into the skirt at the bottom of each cage. Skirts help catch extra seed that's thrown out.  

Here are some of the names we've used for Bourkes and Splendids. See if you recognize why.

Rhett & Scarlett = Bonnie (remember Gone With The Wind?)

     Bonnie & Clyde (infamous American outlaws)

*Rhett & Cherry = Rory (also Rhett Jr.)

*Bing & Stella = Bella  (also Bing Jr.)

     Bella & Rory 

    Willow & Bing Jr.

Rainbow & Jewel = Rainy, Gem (also Rainbow Jr.)

     Rainbow Jr. & Rivka

     Misty & Rainy
     Gem & Rudy

Sugar & Spice = Candy

     Candy & Chitter

Dolly & Dolph

Merlin & Millet = Meryl

     Meryl & Madelyn

I acquired two male birds from a gentleman named Rudolfo. One of them became Rudy and the other we named Dolph. I'll always remember where they came from and that they weren't birds I bred myself.

If your mind doesn't work like mine, perhaps this won't work for you. However, if you see the connections, come up with combinations of your own and share them with the rest of us (email: rosie.birds@gmail.com). I can always use other clever name relationships. I'm reluctant to use long names like Samson & Delilah, Napoleon & Josephine, or Guinevere and Lancelot ... although Lance & Gwen works!

This is Rhett, my oldest bird, and his mate, Cherry. He is facing us, she is turned away. The babies above are their current three, not yet out of the nest, but close to it.

* Originally Bing & Cherry were a pair. Bing was a beautiful singer like Bing Crosby, and since there are Bing Cherries, his wife became Cherry. However, they didn't produce and when other hens became available I put one with him and named her Stella (another variety of cherry tree).  Then, Rhett's mate died young and Rhett married Cherry. Together they've produced many baby birds, as did Bing & Stella. Rhett is my very first bird and still a healthy dad with 3 babies in the box right now (shown above).