News and Updates from the Aviary

Written by George Thursday, 10 June 2010 16:33

It has been a very tough spring for all of us here at the Aviary. I believe the constant expansion, moving the cages around, the commotion of new birds being introduced and all has taken a toll on all our birds and what has resulted in is a delayed reproductive season, which in turn means we are going to have less number of babies. Which is fine as long as we get a wide veriety of babies *smile*.

We have one Sun conure baby being hand-fed, we have a whole bunch of birds on eggs - Sun Conures, Amazons, Alexandrians, Harlequin Macaws. We found out that the first clutch of eggs from our new Severe pair was clear, so we will have to wait a little longer for them. But the original pair (Mischief and Mr.Kitty) are acting a little wierd which hopefully indicates that they are getting ready for their second clutch of eggs ever :). If you all remember correctly this a very young pair and had their first ever clutch of eggs last spring (of course they were clear) - I am guessing the male had no idea what to do. We think last year he was more upset with the female because she was sitting on the eggs and not out playing with the toys along with him. He did know enough to feed her, so hopefully another year of maturity and he will know what to do.

Yesterday we did pull fertile eggs from our Military Macaw pair for incubation and hatching. This is new pair and the previous owners had advised us about the pair not taking care of the babies. Even with knowing all that, Jodie was a little heart-broken about the whole concept of pulling the eggs from the parents that they so carefully incubated and guarded for all this time. We think we will allow them to hatch one baby next clutch and see how they (the parents) do and then make a decision about the following times. We would rather have the parents take care of the baby for the first couple of weeks before we pull them for banding and hand-feeding.

So that is what is going on around here - will update everyone as soon as we have some news to share.