Conures are extremely easy! Really, the only species you have to worry about not feeding the young is the cockatoo species. Sometimes new parent won't until the 2nd or 3rd clutch but that is rare. We always try and leave the babies with the parent for 4 to 5 weeks, definately not over 6 though.
And they should be eating on their own by 6 weeks? Parrots would be a new experience for me. I raised a wide range of wild birds at a wildlife center I used to volunteer at. It's not that hard to find and avoid the airway on those birds, but i can tell by looking at my green feathered friends here that they're a little different. I've been wondering if my Maroon Tail may have been hand raised strait out of the egg because of some of her mannerisms. Do you think that could affect her ability to intereact properly with a potential mate?
That's entirely possible for the time being. Most of my hand raised birds were kept as pets, but every once in a while i would get one back... poor fit for the family's lifestyle, things like that. IF i kept them, and that was a big if, i wouldn't attempt to mate them for a few years. Depending on the bird it may take that long for them to reach sexual maturity. I would usually put them in a cage next to my breeders and let them socialize for a while, them gradually introduce them. After a while, they would make good breeders. This was usually true of the Amzons and Cockatoos. not of the conures, cockatiels or smaller hookbils.
Eddie, i guess i got lucky with my Cockatoos. I could count on them for a good 4 weeks of parenting. I can't say for sure, but i think that the water sprinkler thing had something to do with. But, i'll take dumb luck over experience any day! ;D
Post by birdguy888 on May 10, 2004 14:17:21 GMT -5
Bob, you were definately lucky! I am currently only aware of one pair that rasies their young and I have friends with many different breeding situations and we all end up hand feeding from day one! Talk about hard work....every 2 hours day/night for the first week and then you just start increasing that time by about 30 minutes! For about 2 weeks you really don't get any sleep!
Budgies, conures, cockatiels, the small ones reach sexual maturity at about 2 years of age while the larger species are between 3 and 9 years. Introducing the pair can be long. My cockatoos took almost 6 years to get together and the first male tried to kill my female as soon as they were put int he same cage. I pull him out immediately and put in another male that I was also introducing. As soon as I put him in my female bent over, fluffed her feathers and bulldozed that male right off the perch. He hit the floor and she stood proud and screamed at him a couple of times.....he learned quickly that she was in control! Now they produce all the time. Cockattos usually only have two eggs.....my pair is an extremely rare exception and usually lay 3 and sometimes 4.......fertile! Even their very first clutch was fertile which is also quite rare for first time breeder cockatoos.
Post by birdguy888 on May 15, 2004 13:53:26 GMT -5
Speaking of that, I had one red-tail tiercel named Izzy that would dive into rabbit holes after rabbits. Total pain in the butt pulling him out cause his feathers acted against the hole. I also had to carry a hatchet and pruning sheers to cut him out of sage brush and other big bushes when he would dive right through the center of them for a bunny!
Thanks Birdguy888; I never even thought about it till you mentioned it. I will make sure to keep a set of those kind of tools in the truck whenever I am out with a bird. I live in brush country but I never had a stuck hawk before. LoL
Birdguy said "hatchet and pruning sheers to cut him out of sage brush and other big bushes when he would dive right through the center of them for a bunny!"
Try feeding your hawk on rabbit heads. Attach a rabbit head to the dummy bunny dude and if your bird whacks it from behind keep twitching that dummy till it works up to its head. Your hawk will eventually learn to whack it on the head
My first year male HH was missing ctails `till I start feeding him on rabbit heads.He start catching them in multiple # and on the end of the season at 720 grams hunting weight even with a full crop.He was flying from the low 560g - 720 grams in the winter and at -15C.I lost him by electrocution but his brother from this year has hatched!He will fly in a cast with a second year female HH, flying weight last season at 1100grams.
Eagles may soar, but weasels don't get sucked into jet engines "Give a man a fish, and you'll feed him for a day; give him a religion................ and he'll starve to death while praying for a fish."
I can't speak for your areas of the globe, but i know what's happening to the rabbit population in S.E. Mo. 1) just like any organization, our conservation dept is driven by money. they make most of their money from Deer & Turkey tags and from duck stamps, so these animals get the lions share of the dept's attention. 2) Farmers are clearing out more and more fence rows, therefore habitat is on the decline. 3) Coyotes are plentiful, both in and out of town. They eat anything they can catch and hold down, including cats and small dogs. Over-predation is a problem.
All of this info is directly from the Conservation Department in the State Capitol. They told me that quail is being prioritized for the next two years, then they will start working on rabbit and squirrel. We'll just wait and see what happens, i guess.
Bob
also another thing you might want to keep in mind with rabbits is that they live and breed on a 7-10 year cycle, depending on where you live. What i mean by this is that every 7-10 years the rabbit population gets so big and so many that diseases and things begin to ravage the community and alot of the rabbits die and you have to start all over again from maybe only 2 rabbits per square mile (just an example) and over the coarse of the next few years the rabbits population will begin to build itself up again from those 2 rabbits and spread over those 2 miles to where it seems like there is a rabbit under every bush. Hope this helps any of you... (keep in mind this may have been said already but i dont have the time right now to read the entire forum)