Parrotlet breeding

[nataliezettler]

Hello everyone I'm Natalie and I have a question for birds breeders.
I have 2 bonded pairs that I love very much, and I never really cared much if they bred, I have a busy live so I wanted birds that didn't require me handling all the time, I just like to watch them especially in the morning with my coffee...lol...my one male Johnny a pastel blue 3 year old was my first and I bought him who lost his other mate, so I traveled to buy a female for him....little did I know it ended up being more of a rescue because she was so malnourished and her beak cere was right off and bleeding, she didn't have a cuttle bone and lived off just seed in a cage by herself.....it was sickening to see....my husband and I just decided it was best to buy her and clean her up.....so vet checked, and five months later she is really coming around.....but now her and my male are starting to mate....my male bred before with his old mate and they had 3 healthy little girls , but sadly that female died from chronic egg laying.....I was soooo sad....it really scared me......so now I have a problem where they are mating, checking out the nest, she has larger droppings, but no eggs....and its been a month.....I'm worried about her....the vet says she is healthy and there is no egg inside so far....but what does that mean? If they are going through the motions, why isn't she producing eggs.....and should I worry for her.....??? please help me set my mind at ease....

please note I am not a breeder, I normally let the pairs to go through the normal breeding cycle and then take the eggs out, I only do it if a family member or friend says they want a parrotlet for companionship and no breeding.....I feel strongly about keeping the species intact so none of my pairs offspring can be used for breeding and I'm firm on that.......

[Pajarita]

My dear, do yourself and your birds a favor and take that nest box out of the cage. We are over the breeding season for this year (we are in molting season, as a matter of fact) and birds should never be bred off-season because that means a screwed up endocrine system which has health consequences beyond breeding. Besides, it takes up to two years to bring back a weakened bird up to top condition so it's way too early to attempt anything even if you knew enough about their physiology, biorhythms, pathogens, conditions, etc which (and I am not trying to offend you), you obviously don't as you had a bird that was a chronic layer and died from it (which, contrary to what most people in birdsites will tell you, never needs to happen and only does when people don't know enough). I know it's tempting and that people ask for free birds all the time but the wellbeing of the ones already born comes first.

[nataliezettler]

for your information those baby birds are very healthy and all vet approved, you know I am noticing a pattern with all you breeders, you are all quick to judge.....funny....because registered breeders are not all they are cracked up to be either, that is where I bought the abused female from, a REGISTERED breeder, I take better care of my birds than a lot of breeders that I have went to visit, my birds are full feathered, beautiful birds compared to the lot I seen in breeders stock....So yes it does insult me that you are quick to judge before asking questions, I am a concerned owner that just wants to let my birds do what they do naturally, you say take the nest out I tried that before it doesn't stop them, personally I don't want to stop them its UNNATURAL to ask animals to stop doing what they do. I remove any eggs when after the point...., I was just concerned about this abused female because I don't want her to end up dead..... so then remove the nest, less daylight...etc....then what? I have done all that it doesn't stop the cycle, and this is the first time they have ever done it since I bought her......funny you say breeding is out of season because other breeding sites on here say parrotlets breed when they breed, some breed every three months, some once a year.....my next box, lighting, everything stays the same all year and my one pair breeds once a year that's it.....so how do you explain that? I think some of you breeders have a fixed why things should be done, but the simple fact is, you were a beginner at one point in your life too....I am a blue ribbin dog trainer in my city and I don't tell first time dog owners insulting things, I try and educate them instead, I'm not gonna stop them from doing what they do but I can work with them, what you and a lot of breeders do is almost discourage owning birds unless your educated, but everyone has to start somewhere, and it doesn't matter how much you read, real life problems is how you learn...........I love my birds and if you seen that abused female you would be shocked at how far she has come.....I let them be birds, the have an aviary thats as natural as I can get it....so please do me a favor and either answer my question, or don't waste my time.....

[nataliezettler]

oh and did I mention I'm from Canada.....difference in seasons my dear.....we are in summer months, hot months which is molting and breeding time time for my birds, then they dont breed till the following summer....

[Wolf]

The breeding season in Canada is the same as it is in New York State and for that matter throughout the northern hemisphere, and according to The World Parrot Trust the breeding season for Parrotlets runs from January through May, so breeding season is in fact over.

Perhaps you should look at the areas that Pajarita mentioned that you needed more information in and see what you can find out. Like many of us, the bedside manner may not always be tactful but we are very much into the accuracy of our information. None of us here claim to be an expert, but we do have years of experience with taking care of our birds and we spend countless hours in research concerning the welfare of these birds.

You speak of Pajarita assuming things, like that your bird died due to the lack of knowledge that you had, but you are the one who told her of its death and why it died. It may be true that this was a long time ago, but you gave no indication as to weather this occurred last season or ten seasons ago so I really fail to see her assuming anything.

You on the other hand are making blanket statements ( you breeders are...) and are assuming many factors and because you don't like it done to you, decide to blindly attack the person rather than disagreeing with their statements, all while doing that which you are accusing the other person of.

If you are looking for honest answers then you have come to the right place, if you are looking to have your ego stroked then you will not find that here.

The majority of the information that I have been able to find concerning your problem suggests that the male in your case is stuck in breeding mode and that the best and possibly the only way to get him unstuck is to separate him from the female. I have not found any thing other than this at this point in time but I will keep looking and will be glad to inform you if I find out anything more.

[Tman007]

Nataliezettler, Just take a deep breath and relax for a minute, If you do as Pajarita has ask you to do, it will take some time it just doesn't happen over night. If anyone can help you get through this it's Pajarita. Now we know you are worried about you parrot, and so are we. This forum we all look out for each others parrots. If one is having a problem we all try and find a way to help. The information you will get from here will help you out. Just try not to take the fact that you are upset about your parrot and take it out on the people who are trying to help you. Both Wolf and Pajarita have help me and a lot of other people on this forum. So please try and stay clam and you will get the help you need.

[nataliezettler]

Look I came on here for help are you gonna help me or not?....everything you guys have said so far I have already tried.....she hasn't had a nest in the cage for over a month now and they are still breeding, I didn't just try an overnight thing.......and YES when it is warm they breed EVERYTHING I read on parrotlets says that they breed in the warmest months and right now we are around 40% c so the cages are all at 80%f I can't help that......I don't use air conditioner......all I'm getting on here is negativity from you all....when I thought bird lovers would be happy I saved that female instead of just saying, oh well shes sick I'm not wasting money on that. I'm sorry my other female died, I feel like I'm being punished because that happened.....they were my first pair of parrotlets, and yes I made a mistake just like I'm sure you all did at one time with anything in your life....but remember I also saved the chronic egg laying baby, gained my knowledge, figured out how to stop it.....now I may not even have a problem with this female, she could be fine....I just wanted knowledge from experts like you all to prevent any problem, without having to remove her from the male....I tried the nest removal, less lighting, less protein diet ....everything to promote breeding I eliminated.....and for a good month, and even while I'm writing this they are about to breed again, they just mate all the time but no eggs.....like I said they do what they do.....so help me understand please, but stop freakin bashing me and insulting my intelligence because you will get attitude from me, I'm not a child so don't talk down to me, is all I'm asking....its called ethical communication.....if the next answer I get from any of you is bashing, then I'm done here, I'll go back to my vet I guess, she doesn't know much about egg laying but hell its better than wasting time here......goodnight

[Wolf]

We are trying to help you, and I understand that you are upset about your birds, but we are not to blame for the problem and do not deserve the way you are treating us. I, myself have been researching this problem sine noon , that is now 14 hours of writing the top parrotlet breeders in this country as well as everything else that I have been able to find on your problem.

For the second time, separate the male from the female. there is nothing wrong with the female. The problem is with the male, he is stuck in breeding mode and if you want to get a handle on this then you have to separate them. I wish that I could give you another answer ,but I can't. So far this is all I have been able to find out. I am tired and am going to bed now, but will do more research tomorrow.

For your information, we are not experts, nor do we claim to be any such thing, we are parrot owners with varying degrees of experience. Some of us have worked professionally with parrots and some not, what we have in common is a love for these birds and a willingness to try and make things better for these birds. It is the birds that are important, only the birds.

This is the best that I can do for your birds, but don't even come back on here with this nasty attitude again or I will stop trying to help you, because I am freely giving my time and energy to you and your problem and I do not feel like being abused by you any further.

[nataliezettler]

I am sorry, wolf, and anyone else I offended, I was upset and responded with a lot of negativity, I never came on here wanting a fight, I just thought the first reply I got back came on extremely rude, and I can think of a hundred different ways she could have approached that instead of saying basically "do you and your birds a favor" and a lot of other comments she made.... but obviously you all don't see that in her comments you just saw mine..........I didn't deserve her rudeness my first time on here, not a great welcome that's for sure....I'm sorry though for my harshness towards everyone, ..... you are really still not answering the main question I have, is it a problem if they mate and she doesn't lay eggs?
are you saying that I need to separate the pair for good then? Or just a while? and then if I put him back and they start at it again am I gonna have to keep on separating them? I'm just worried about disruption and stress if I start doing that with them, when I take each bird out to beak file and oil the mate waiting in the cage goes nuts and I'm worried about stress if I did that for a long period of time.......If you thing they can handle it then fine I'll try I'm still worried about her internal though and why she doesn't lay....isn't that unnatural to not lay? I get that her trauma could play a role in it, in fact her age too sometimes, she is 3yrs old, I read that sometimes they don't lay after that, I just wanted a few more opinions so I can take action, she may need to be examined again by a vet....vet says shes fine but you never know I guess. Anyway sorry again, was not meant towards any of you, I just found that woman rude is all. And I get it if she really knows her stuff, awesome, but don't belittle people....oh another thing you say you are all done for breeding right now? But I am seeing a tone of registered breeders online and in my province that have chicks and chicks on the way, so I'm confused.....I thought as long as you give them a break in between they can breed all year round if they want? why do other breeders do that then if they now it messes with stuff? sorry for all the questions, I just really want to understand all of this, and do things right.....

[Wolf]

Let's back up and try to clear the air a little and then get back to the business of trying to answer your questions. I know Pajarita, and I know that she had no intention of offending you in any way. I am not going to go into her manner of expressing herself any further than that. That is for the two of you to work out or not.
I needed you to calm down so that we can work together to find the best solution to this issue and we can't do that if we are fighting with each other. Please feel free to correct me when you think that I am wrong. Feel free to tell me if you think that I am being rude or whatever, but let's not start attacking each other, because of misunderstandings. We can fix misunderstandings, but only if we aren't fighting. That is all I really feel the need to say about that and have no problems with listening to whatever you have to say about it in response.

Now let's get back to your problem and try to answer your questions.

I am not really sure where the best place to start is but since it appears to be a major contributing factor in the understanding of this ,I guess I will begin with the issue of breeders and their practices, and how it ties in. Please bear in mind that this is just my take on it.

There are a lot of breeders online, and yes many of them still have birds for sale, but the number of birds on hand is nearly depleted, but the breeders continue to advertise birds for sale. The majority of birds that they have for sale now, on hand, are mostly females that are being pulled out of their breeding programs as they have been mostly used up. This means that the number of and quality of their eggs is dropping. They are also advertising, trying to fill up their waiting lists as this tells them how many of what mutations to breed for the next season and is where the vast majority of their money comes from. One last reason that they are continuing to advertise, well actually two reasons, is to keep their name in front of you the prospective customer, and the second half of that is if they drop off of their advertising then the little search spiders on the web will not find them as quickly and instead of being in the top ten or so on the first page of the search engine they may find themselves somewhere on page ten or worse. this is why you see so many of them.

Now let's advance to the breeding practices and the birds, which will hopefully begin to relate to what is going on with your birds a little.
I am hopefully going to try to explain this from the perspective, or at least mostly so , of the better breeders, as well at from how this applies to the birds involved in their breeding programs.
Just as in many other species of animals the female is born with her entire lifetime supply of egg inside of her and when they are used up, well that's all there is from that bird. With the better breeders this means a lifetime expectancy in the breeding program of 3 to 4 years. This is achieved by limiting the number of breedings per female to two and sometimes three clutches of eggs per year. If they are to consider the health and wellbeing of the hen at all then that third clutch can't happen any closer than every two years. Any closer than that shortens the birds actual life expectancy to much. Basically it is the difference between the bird living to be ten to fifteen years old or only living to be four to five years old.
With the technology that we presently have available to us and this is used by a lot of breeders, we are able to keep a bird breeding all year long, but the cost of doing this is ultimately paid by the female bird as it ends up causing their deaths through complications at only 3 to 4 years of age, a small fraction of their normal lifetimes. We control this through temperature, food and vitamins and through the lighting.
Now, I have been talking to one of the top breeders of parrotlets in this country, since you posted about your problem and have found that it is not uncommon for some of the males to get stuck in breeding mode. This is due to the conditions that they are living under. More specifically the type and amount of lighting, the constant availability of high quality food, and a fairly constant temperature that is conducive to the hatching of the eggs and the raising of the young that are hatched. For the most part the female cuts back on egg production because her body needs a rest before continuing, but the male doesn't need this same break and continues to try to breed the female. To combat this the breeders separate the pair, and place them in separate rest cages next to each other.
This is as far as I have gotten with this breeder at the moment. I have sent an email requesting more information, specifically as to how long and under what conditions they are to be separated.
I do have some thoughts of my own concerning this, which I will share with you at this point. I suspect that given the setup of the breeders facility that the separation of the mated pair lasts until they are ready to breed them again. This is due to the fact that they are setup with lighting and so forth designed solely for the purpose of reproduction and not for a normal existence or even one similar to that of a companion bird. You and I are primarily interested in achieving some degree of harmony with the birds natural cycles that will help to insure a long and healthy life and this is at odds with the goals of the breeder, even the better ones.
Given the conditions in which we prefer to live ourselves it is easy to induce the conditions needed for breeding to occur, but the ongoing struggle that owners of companion birds contend with is to make the bird comfortable and healthy and happy without throwing them into a constant breeding cycle. This takes a lot of thought and effort to insure that while providing ample food that we don't give them too much of the wrong foods, the same problems exist for us in the areas of temperature and most importantly in the amount and type of light that our bird receive.
Your female is ok, she is not the one that is having the problem, her body is doing what it should be doing at this time and is trying to stop producing eggs until next breeding season. The male is stuck in breeding mode.
the solution to this situation is going to take at least until next breeding season to fix, and unfortunately there is no other way to fix this. You need to put these birds on a solar light schedule and keep them on it. This means that they need to be exposed to the natural light spectrum beginning with dawn and get up when the sun comes up and be exposed to dusk light spectrum in the evening and go to bed when the sun sets. This is their natural schedule of light and it will gradually reset their endocrine system which in turn either directly controls or affects every other major system in the birds body. As the season progresses towards winter you need to set your temperature so that the temperature that they live in can drop down to between 60 and 65 degrees F. and you need to control the diet that you are providing them so as to reduce the amount of fat and proteins that they receive. They also need several hours of time outside of their cages to fly about and exercise. Flying is the only form of exercise that can help to reduce the level of hormones in their bloodstream and help to return it to normal levels.

Now that is my take on this and if I am in error them others should jump in and correct me on this. Also I welcome you take on this, including any information on what you have done, or information that you may have whether it agrees or not with anything that I have said.