Our pair of young Scarlet Chested Parrots have been wonderful parents. They reared five young birds in their first clutch - 3 males and 2 females. Then she went down again, and hatched four more, so we have seven young Scarlets as well as their parents. Ken will eventually sell some of these at the Avicultural Society, to make room in the aviaries for this year's young ones as it looks like she will be a prolific layer.
Ken sold 15 canaries and 20 quail late last year, which has taken the pressure off the other birds. We could hardly walk inside the aviaries without nearly treading on quail, after they had gone mad and kept laying and hatching babies! They are so cute and we enjoyed seeing them, but once they grow up, they are like mice and keep breeding. So he has another 30 to sell, and will just keep one male and two females in each aviary for now. They will breed too, but this time he plans to control them by removing eggs once the female is sitting on half a dozen.
The canaries also had a breeding frenzy last year, so it was good to get rid of the majority of them, as while they can be kept with the Gouldian Finches, the canaries can be aggressive, and are always the first to get to the food when we put fruit and veg. in the avaries. While the Gouldians don't starve, we don't like seeing them pushed out of the way by the slightly bigger canaries!
Last week Ken succumbed to temptation and bought a pair of Turquoisines from a member of the Society at the meeting. K. had brought them along to the meeting to see if anyone would be interested, and Ken was very much interested, but hesitated, as he worries about overcrowding his birds. When I came over to have a look I said straight away "'Oh, you must buy them, they are beautiful!" So he did.
Fortunately the Neophema family of parrots are very docile, and live happily with the finches in the same aviaries.
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