Hello parrot guys

[Breeder]

Hey parrot guys, good to see such forum. As my nickname says, i'm not exactly a breeder but trying to be one. I have 14 years experience with budgies and cockatiels and doing it great, but the last 3 years something going wrong with my cockatiels. You see, i had budgies and cockatiels all together in one big cage (1 m width, 2 m long, 2 m height). They were doing it great, many babies every year. I was selling every year at least 40 parrots. The biggest number of parrots in that cage was surpassing 100 . Tha last years i notice that the baby cockatiels were having problems with the budgies. The budgies were gonna on them and bitting them. By that, the father and mother cockatiel didn't want them anymore, and there was the biggest problem of all. How to survive. I lost many cockatiels except the last 2, because i figure out how to feed them. Anyway, the last year i bought 6 zebra finches (3 pairs) and planning on breeding them. I made a cage equal to half of the old one. I put the finches on the upper floor and i'm planning on puting lovebirds on the lower floor (see cage). I bought a breeding cage (that can "transform" into 6 individual small cages) and planning also breed canaries. I am really a big fun of breeding. It's just wonderful. I already have 5 baby budgies on their nests right now and some eggs in cockatiel's nests too (i hope they doing it without problems this year). I completely change the cages this year. I seperate budgies from cockatiels (50-50 cage) and they have no problems at all. I replace a bunch of wooden toys i made (i was too young to find money buying their toys), with nice good ones from pet stores. I buy some extra nests, buy wooden perches instead of plastic ones, replace the roof of the cage by puting wood that i'm gonna put "that waterproof thing that looks like ceramic". See the pictures for more info.

Oh, and right now those are the numbers of my birds:

Cockatiels - 8 (6 females, 2 males)
Budgies - 23 (10 females, 13 males)
Zebra finches - 6 (3 females, 3 males)

Right now, i wish for my cockatiels to have a succesful "production" (sorry for my english, what is the word?) of babies so i can trade them with others from different DNA. I didn't trade cockatiels ever since 1995. They are all the same DNA and i'm afraid of that. Plus that i couldn't trade of the cockatiels i have right now because they have that bad habit to bite the neck feathers of the other. They have their own fashion you see. The only cockatiels that don't have that bad habit, right now they are in their nests warming their eggs. Lets hope the babies will gonna be healthy and at least 3. Difficult number for me since the most babies in one birth i had untill now was 4.

Anyway, enough talk i think. Tell me your opinions about my wrong breeding methods i had all these years I just become 18 years old and the only one who feed and take care these birds it's me.

[Breeder]

Here some other recently photos:

[Razzle]

Hi! Please don't apologize, your english is good! Not perfect, but still pretty good. :) Sorry, I have no experience so I cannot help you. Hopefully some others can answer your questions!

[becca623]

I like your aviaries. Did you build them? I hope you have better luck this year.

[Abby]

Hello and welcome.

I thin you really need to bring some new birds in with your cockatiels to sort out the bloodlines. Looking at the photos I can see the ones that have had some feathers puled out but there's also some really nice ones too. Is it possible to trade some of these? What you really want is to get your ratio male to female more even.

I also feel you need to keep your cockatiels and budgies separate especially when they are all breeding. If possible can you build some single pair breeding cages for the cockatiels and budgies. That way you know who is with who and it helps to stop the fighting and any future in breeding. Cockatiels don't particularly care who they're making babies with as far as family.

The problem you've run into is one I had myself in my teens. I now breed pairs in their own separate aviaries. I just rotate them through the breeding aviaries so that the parents only have 2 clutches a year. I think this is better for the health of the parent birds. If the parent birds are healthy then chances are better that the babies will also be healthy.

If you have more questions on breeding then there's a section here that would be better for you to ask in
Aviaries & Breeders - BirdBoard.Com - Parrot Message Board & Pet Bird Owner Forums

Also the cockatiel area or budgie area.

I have no experience with finches or canaries.

[expressmailtome]

Welcome! It sounds like you have a great collection of birds! Enjoy the site!

Matt

[Breeder]

Hey guys, thanks for the help. No, i can't make seperate cages for cockatiel and budgies. I will bring a pair of lovebirds (fischers) in about a moment. I will post some pics

[Breeder]

Here:

[Razzle]

Originally Posted by Breeder

Hey guys, thanks for the help. No, i can't make seperate cages for cockatiel and budgies. I will bring a pair of lovebirds (fischers) in about a moment. I will post some pics

Your cage for them is large enough that you should be able to put in some chicken wire dividing it in half, if you've got doors on both sides of the cage, so that they are next to each other in the cage but the cockatiels can't get to the budgies. Especially when breeding this is VERY important!

[Breeder]

I don't see any proplem with my cockatiels and budgies. In fact, they don't even pay attention to them anymore. Cockatiels are in their world now, andd so budgies too. I think that my lovebirds enjoying their new home right now, since i can see them flying from perch to perch all energy. They get even in both nests. That's good, right?