kinsei
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Posts: 54 
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Post by kinsei on Sept 26, 2011 1:49:06 GMT 10
omg!! i'm so frustrated, i spent so long typing and then when i went to post it it didn't work!! argh maybe i took to long. anyway i just really wanted to know if you can have a male and female eckie as pets and not for breeding? my other half is saying no to any more right now, and last time it took me 1.5 years to convince him so my best guess it's going to be similar timing again before anything is set in stone but i was to start researching and getting as much info as i can from now. my first choice on my list is a female eclectus because i'm so obessed with them and it would be nice to have one of each. the others that follow are a conure (i like them all), quaker or cockatiel and with whatever we end up with my first preference would try to rehome if possible. my questions are if they really wanted to breed is it cruel to continue preventing it? would pets even want to breed in an inside environment? do you think pedro would welcome another bird in the house (how hard is it to introduce birds)? would their behaviour change towards us? what kind of challenges would we face? any sort of input is welcome  thank you |
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Post by avinet on Sept 26, 2011 9:46:29 GMT 10
I've had that problem with the message not being sent after typing out a long reply. I have found that when the Forum seems to freeze like that, and the message can't be sent, I can select all the text and copy with Control-C and then start over and paste with Control-V. Saves a lot of re-typing. Anyway back to your question, I can't really speak about Eclectus since I have no personal experience with keeping them, but from what I have heard they can develop quite a strong breeding urge, so you could well run into breeding problems with a pair. No doubt Robyn will come along and give you the expert's opinion on this one. I have always tried when I can to keep my pet birds in the house as pairs, but in many cases with that decision has come efforts from the pairs to breed. Of course when we had our pet shop that wasn't unwelcome - we had a ready market for babies, but these days in retirement we are not so keen. Right at the moment we have a 20 year old pair of Ringnecks sitting on 7 eggs in their cage in our living room. I might actually make a separate thread about them later today - it is an interesting situation to say the least: So yes, pairs kept in a house as pets certainly can try to breed, and often will. We have had Budgies, Cockatiels, King Parrots, Crimson-wing Parrots, Indian Ringnecks, Little Lorikeets, Princess Parrots and Alexandrines happily try to breed in our house, cheers, Mike |
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kinsei
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Posts: 54
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Post by kinsei on Sept 27, 2011 0:03:41 GMT 10
it certainly is looking like if they were to take a liking to each other then eventually they would want to do the birdy dance... looks like you've gone through enough birds to know this!
if the urge for them would be going to be a stressful time maybe i'd rather not be to selfish about it! i really love the girls as well though and have been going through ways to get around this somehow and right now it's probably not looking like it's doable without any headaches down the track.
i've always wondered how people with so many birds that breed where do all the babies go? what happens if you have all these babies and no buyers? i can see all your birds in house multiplying and taking over - lol ;D (or have they already?)
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Post by avinet on Sept 27, 2011 9:22:54 GMT 10
if the urge for them would be going to be a stressful time maybe i'd rather not be to selfish about it! It isn't especially that the birds necessarily get stressed out if they can't breed - but Eclectus have a reputation for the females getting very aggressive at breeding time, and that may happen whether they actually lay eggs or not. Without a nest box they may even decide to nest on the bottom of the cage. That is bad enough with a small bird such as a cockatiel - but with a big bird like an Eclectus with a big bite to match, it does pose a big problem in a house cage situation. I just don't have the experience to know with Eclectus if it is an impossible situation. We had a pet shop specialising in birds so selling the babies wasn't a problem, however it is still hard at times to sell those babies that have been born and raised in the house - we seem to have a closer affinity to the house babies from our pet birds than those from the aviary birds. My daughter in particular had this problem, she started out with a pair of Alexandrines, and now has 11! Mum, Dad, 4 sons and 3 daughters, plus 2 outsiders kept because of physical handicaps. cheers, Mike |
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kinsei
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Post by kinsei on Sept 29, 2011 0:21:14 GMT 10
thanks for the bigger picture here i didn't know they would or could still lay eggs without a nest box  ... and i quite like my fingers and would like to keep them too! your daughter has an instant family! lol. i guess the love for birds has been passed down? theres a few videos on youtube of male and female living as pets although you never get shown any rough times or if they ended up breeding or not. anyway it's still early days but i'm swinging more with the whole not going there right now phase. |
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Post by meandem on Sept 29, 2011 8:44:32 GMT 10
thanks for the bigger picture here i didn't know they would or could still lay eggs without a nest box ... and i quite like my fingers and would like to keep them too! your daughter has an instant family! lol. i guess the love for birds has been passed down? theres a few videos on youtube of male and female living as pets although you never get shown any rough times or if they ended up breeding or not. anyway it's still early days but i'm swinging more with the whole not going there right now phase. They certainly don't need a nest box to lay eggs - and they don't even need a male for that matter! My darling little (yes that's right, little - Chucky has lost weight - she is now 450gms!) just recently decided that it was time for her to start laying. Chuckles loves to play in a cardboard box, so of course, I am happpy to oblige and I give her boxes to play in all the time. She will run in and out of the box happily, and luckily enough she is quite content with my hand being in there at the same time. Chuckles has never been aggressive to me at any time. But hearing all the stories, I am sure I am just very lucky with her. Anyway, after all this playing in and out of boxes, Chuckles decided that she would start laying, as she doesn't have a partner I took the eggs from her. She laid the first one, I took it from her, then a second - took that too, and then laid a third! I was beginning to think I owned a chook! So for now, we have stopped playing in the boxes and we have a big bit of pvc pipe that is open at both ends so she can run and in out of and I can play with her. No more eggs so far! Get her a male you say, well I tried - but she really isn't accepting of another bird - beit male or female. I would love for her to have a partner. So for now, it is just going to be the two of us - and hopefully she has got over the whole laying egg thing!  |
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Post by anzac on Sept 29, 2011 9:44:47 GMT 10
Maybe Chuckles is just happy that you her "mate" and that's enough for her?
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kinsei
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Posts: 54
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Post by kinsei on Sept 30, 2011 7:21:41 GMT 10
chuckles is very pretty how old is she? has she laid eggs before and when is that the cause for weight loss? sounds like chuckles is stuck on you |
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Post by twr on Oct 5, 2011 5:52:49 GMT 10
No ekkie experience here, but my female lorikeet currently has her 2nd batch of eggs. No nest box, she laid them on the cage bottom. Overnight, I swap the real egg for a fake one. Then I leave the fake ones in there for 2-3 weeks until I'm sure she has abandoned them, then I remove them. So far, she only shows a very little interest in sitting on them (like 10 mins out of 24hrs) since she is new to egg laying and only just figuring out what she should be doing.
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kinsei
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Posts: 54
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Post by kinsei on Oct 7, 2011 19:30:40 GMT 10
do you plan on breeding your lorries twr?
and how do you know if the eggs are infertile (the ones being laid on bottom of cage?)
sorry for the questions i don't mean to come across nosey i'm just curious!
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Post by twr on Oct 10, 2011 5:53:21 GMT 10
do you plan on breeding your lorries twr? and how do you know if the eggs are infertile (the ones being laid on bottom of cage?) sorry for the questions i don't mean to come across nosey i'm just curious! I don't plan on breeding them, unless by accident. I have a set of fake eggs and I take out the real one and replace it with the fake one. I don't know if the ones she lays are fertile or not, but unless I slip up, we won't ever find out |
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thank you
