Colony breeding kakarikies[u],[b]need help[/b][/u]

allen519 · New Member Joined: Feb 22, 2010 Posts: 3

hi im looking for a little advice on colony breeding,
i have a pair of kaks in a mixed avairy (with pair of bourkes,budgies,cockatiels,redrumps,gmr's) they all live together fine as there is plenty of space, and all the birds this year have sucsefully reared young , but the kaks are my favourites so i want to get more maybe diffenrt mutations , im seprating the other birds so its just the kaks on their own they currently have four young which have just fledged so i wanted to keep these and buy in more birds to make up some more breeding pairs, but need advice on this to no if it would work and do kaks breed well in colonies like budgies or bourkes,
thanks for your time simon[/u]

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

Can be done, but not reliably.
Either setup breeding cages and a couple holding flights or separate flights for each pair
There are older threads o the subject and lots of experimenting.
(Quick search block on the left and search function above.)
We have don a lot of experimenting over the yrs...If I was to set up from scatch with the knowledge I have now, I wouldnt even consider community breeding kakariki or burkes, Diffenatly not red rumps The latter you wake up 1 morning and find a lot of dead bodies on the floor.
I would using like near all serious experianced breeders do, separate cages and/or flights..

I will put it this way...I wold not have gone to the effort of building 2 avairies with 13 flights plus breeding cages without good reason, and another 9m x 2m x2m holding avary under construction.

The other issue is the work involved in commuty flights....the more birds the more frequent water changes, food supplies , cleaning etc (we do have auto watering daily)

allen519 · New Member Joined: Feb 22, 2010 Posts: 3

hi thanks for taking the time to reply ,
ive found some posts on here which have been a help , im going to seperate the birds into there own flights this will defiinetly be less stressfull for the birds , and as for colony breeding i think already having a established pair puttting in more birds would be an almost fatal mistake.
thanks again simon

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

At the moment I am experimenting wit yellow crown and community breeding...
My assumption is that reds and yellows mayde a little different???
So far 1 pair doesnt like it
3 other pairs are fine most of the time, but will not let others within about m of the nesting box (reds seems about 4 m)
One of these has very young chicks, the other 2 pair still sitting...1 pair on 10 or 11 eggs (not going to risk upsetting by moving here out of the way.)

Total 5 males 5 females 5 nesting boxes

allen519 · New Member Joined: Feb 22, 2010 Posts: 3

hope that works out ok , could be something i could try sometime , but problem is the yellow crowned are a lot harder to come by than the reds , ive only ever seen one pair , are the yellows more diffucult to breed than the reds or are they being breed out by cross breeding?.

Steptoe · Site Admin Joined: Oct 06, 2004 Posts: 4550

No yellows are not more difficult than reds....
Difficult is not the word thu...little slower to go to nest would describe better
But definately not more diffcult.....I think they have a tendency to lay far bigger batches of eggs thu...