| When I first joined
the ASST I had heard about this addiction, and like many new members
I laughed at the idea of becoming addicted to birds... but a year on
- I have caught the bug well and truly. How do I know this?
Maybe it is because this time last year I had 2 aviaries outside and
2 birds inside... now I have 7 birds inside, 8 aviaries outside and
the footings going in place for another 5 aviaries... and I don't
regret it for a moment. A second symptom would definitely have
to be my new shopping ritual, I wander up and down the fruit and veg
aisle for ages with my shopping trolley, which is something I NEVER
did before keeping birds... I am a frozen veg kind of girl at dinner
time (microwaves rule), and I never eat fruit... fruit is for
healthy people... right? Now I find myself perusing shelves
*hmmm...I hate celery, but the alexs love it , so I better buy it...ooohh...watermelon
tastes disgusting, but the lorikeets go crazy for it...Oh yuck,
cucumber gives me heart burn, but my quaker goes nutty over
it...Wow, oranges are expensive this time of year...but the macaw
chews them up rind and all...carrots, yeah, I do eat carrots...but
it is the favourite for my kakarikis, so better buy two
bags...hmmm...I wonder if they will like kiwi fruit, only one way to
find out... I better get some silver beet, and some lettuce for the
canaries. Nope, I don't need apples this week...plenty left
from the roadside stall. Oh - definitely some strawberries, if the
birds don't eat them I can dip them in chocolate for myself, ummm...yep,
some melon will add a nice bit of colour to their fruit salad, a few
cobs of corn...and oh look...I can get green grapes AND red
grapes...that will give them a bit of variety...at the checkout I can
now hold my head high as all of these wonderfully healthy items run
over the scanner, I can pretend they are for me...the chips and
chocolates are definitely still in my shopping cart... but dominance
is diluted by the sheer volume of fruit and veg!!! Maybe I should
start a veggie garden this year? Nah, sounds too much like hard
work, and besides...Coles and Woolworths would have to go out of
business!
Usually when I read the monthly
magazine there are lots of articles written by people who have been
keeping birds for years, I have been promising Ronda (editor) I
would give her a story for the magazine for about 6 months now - but
I didn't know what to write about - I have only been keeping birds
seriously for a year, this is my first real breeding season - so I
thought that is what I should write about! My first experience
breeding birds
My absolute first parrot love
would have to be kakarikis, the antics of these crazy little clowns
just cracks me up every time I see them doing their "corner dancing"
or their "round abouts". I purchased my first pair last year in a
Launceston pet shop and never really had any intentions of breeding
them, I fell in love when I stuck my finger through the wire and
they sat on it instead of biting it... I just planned on keeping
them inside and laughing at their antics. Within a month
however I noticed they were doing more than just dancing around in
their average sized inside aviary, and when I commented on this to
Roy at one of the Tuesday night meetings, he told me "put a nest box
in there...I bet they are in it within 5 minutes". So
following this advice, I put a standard shop bought nesting box in
the corner of the aviary and watched with great delight as only
seconds later the female sat on the little perch at the front of the
box and peered in the entrance...but she never went in. For
about 3 days she continued this behaviour, sitting on the little
perch and looking inside the box. "Go in" I would shout to her with
great impatience...but to no avail. Maybe she was
claustrophobic? Can birds get that? Maybe she was scared
of the dark? Surely it isn't that dark inside...maybe she just
didn't want to be a mother? Nope...her continued morning
frolics DEFINITELY proved that theory wrong...what could be the
problem be? Finally after a week my husband said to me "you
know...I think she can't fit into the hole?" I stared at him like he
was an idiot...of course she could fit...she was only a little bird,
and it was a standard sized hole...kakarikis are famous for getting
themselves into tight places...but typical male fashion, he wouldn't
listen to me, and he got the nest box out and took to the entrance
hole with a large wood file! Most people would have drilled
the hole larger, but that would have been too easy! After much
grunting and a lot of time Mark held up the nest box with its new
rather wiggly shaped hole for my inspection, I shrugged in a very "I
still don't agree with you" kind of way and he put the nest box back
in place. About 5 seconds later the female was in the box - followed
by the male......there was lots of squeaking and scuffling and only a
few hours later their first egg was laid!
After a little over a week they
had 9 eggs in their nest box, I had no idea one little bird could
lay so many! But after much research on the internet (you
gotta love google) I discovered this was "normal". A few weeks
later I had my very first baby birds! Three of the eggs had
hatched in this first lot, which was a bit of a relief to me
as I couldn't imagine any mother having to raise 9 babies?
She was a VERY protective mother, and seemed to know whenever
I paused by their cage, she would start to "scream" at me from
within her box! When it came time to put the ring on her
babies she did just more than scream at me, my little angel bird
turned into a biting screaming raging over protective banshee!!!!
How could one little green ball of feathers have so much wrath in
her body? My fingers still sting with the memory. They
proved to be excellent parent, and before the babies had even left
the nest they were on more eggs! It was at this stage that I
decided to move them outside into a bigger aviary...while they were
obviously happy inside, a bigger cage for their growing family just
seemed like the right thing to do! Sooo...Aviary number 3 was
born...
RETURN TO ARTICLES
|
