Ygmu99 wrote:Ringneck parrots also don't mate for life so i daught it'll take a whole year for them to "bond." I have bred budgies, but never African Ringnecks so I was just lookin to see if anyone hear had any tips. My birds are sexually mature they are three years old. My male has a dark ring around his neck and has blue on the back of his neck which shows he is mature. The female doesn't have a ring as females don't get one, but the breeder i baught her from said she was 3 years old (I trust this breeder a lot.) I waited untill now because I read that it was better to put in the a nest box in the cage now because if I put it in during winter there might be problem such as egg binding. So I just waited till now was that a bad idea? As for the food when I baught the female the breeder said she was ready to breed as the breeder had been preparing her to breed. I know it may be to early as only three weeks have passed, and I know ARN's only breed during this time, so will I have to wait till next year than? And yes I don't know a lot about breeding this parrots as this is my first time, all my knowledge i have acquired from reading articles from multpile sources, and breeding budgies. I just wanted to see if anyone had any tips, hey theres gotta be a first time.
P.s
I do not wish make money out of this birds.
To tell you the truth, I am not sure if I believe that IRNs don't mate for life. I have seen many times the 'they have different mates throughout their lives' but I've never found a single report from a reputable source that, having observed a banded flock for a number of years, stated this unequivocally. The thing is that one cannot use the behavior of parrots in captivity to determine these things because, in captivity, they have no large pool of individuals to choose from so I have often seen pairs that having been alone all their lives, have bonded with each other but, once they join a flock, they split up and get new mates -and this with birds that are supposed to mate for life! So, is this something that was observed by breeders who, not realizing that captivity does not provide natural behaviors, reached a wrong conclusion? Or is it true and it does, indeed, happen the same way in the wild? I don't know. What I do know is that breeders put their pairs together way before they are supposed to breed and don't allow them to even see other birds - which is not natural at all because they are highly social birds.
At three years of age, they should be mature enough but I have read that, in the wild, they start breeding when they are 3 to 4 years old so it might be a bit too early for them.
Also, they are short-day breeders so they start producing sexual hormones in January and breeding in Februray and March although there have been cases when they do it in April so I think it's too late for them this year (my short day breeders are on their second clutch already).
You can't really call breeding budgies having experience and I am not trying to put you down with this but budgies will breed under the worst conditions and keep on doing it (even when the babies come out all deformed) until the mother dies from depletion or eggbinding. They are easier to breed than canaries - and that's saying a mouthful!
Now, a word of caution and I hope you don't take this the wrong way as I am only saying this out of concern and based on my own experience. We ALL think we are going to be able to take care of all the babies forever but, going by rehoming statistics, almost none of us do so I recommend you think about this breeding business very, very, very carefully because there is a huge overpopulation of parrots and this is because there are very, very, very few good 'forever' homes for them. Also, the species you chose is not the best for keeping a number of them together (they require expert and very long and very regular handling or they 'revert'). I think you will end up with a bunch of wild and unmanageable parrots which will be VERY difficult to rehome as hardly anybody would want a psittacula that has reverted...