Posted: Mon Oct 09, 2006 9:15 pm Post subject: Advice on indoor cages, pairing & diet, please.
Arnie our male kak, now 15 weeks old & Millie our female are now very friendly with each other. It's taken nearly 3 week's for Millie to realize she REALLY DOES LIKE Arnie! She is no longer aggressive to him a is now following him in flight & calling to him. They are hopping in & out of each other's cages & a couple of times every day Milly gets hormonal towards him... but it looks as if she may have to wait as Arnie, although very interested & quite excited about Millie's obvious invitation, doesn't really seem to know what he is supposed to do - LOL! Is he still a bit immature to be able to mate?
Anyway I now feel a lot more confident about housing them together in one indoor cage. They live in our living room which is large & we have a corner free for a large cage. We are thinking of getting the largest cage possible with 1.6 to 1.8cm spacing between the bars would this be the best choice?
I've started to introduce new veggies to their diet, broccli & pomegranit.
& they love both. I'm still a bit uncertain on giving them chicken bones, minced beef, pasta & cheese. Surely, the last 2 are too high in carbohydrate? Advice needed!
At the moment they get an assortment of mixed seed & a few mixed nuts daily. For their fruit & veg they have, kiwi fruit, apple, strawberry, grape, clementine, cucumber, tomato, baby sweetcorn. I have tried celery & carrot but neither of them are keen.
Thank's again for this wonderful, informative, fun website, best on the whole world-wide web!
Hi Ziggy,sounds like your pair are getting along really well now, males have been known to fertilize eggs from as early as four months but I would wait until you see a complete performance before you put their box in as milly will lay regardless of whether they do the job or not. I would probably opt for the smaller spacing between the wires as kakarikis tend to get themselves in some awkward positions and you wouldn't want them sqeezing their heads through the bars. Your diet sounds fine my birds seem to like the carrot when they are feeding their young ,it is often the first thing they pick out. Good luck with them both Jenny.
Pasta...no, cheese in very small 'treat' amounts.
Too much Broccolli and some other foods can cause problems unless a balanced diet is given
ie to obsorb iron (grubs/meat, spinach) requires fruit (citric acid)
When cooking dinner, the potato scrapes, pumpkin skin, peas shells, carrot peelings and tops, chopped up are good for them, and fruit separate.
Add a few peas, sweet corn, sprouted mung/alfafa/bean that can be purcheased at the supermarket....washed weeds out of the garden, like danilion, puha (type of milk thistle).
At 1st u will find they will 'love 'a particular food' I believe this is simily them correcting a diet deficiency, then they settle down to a bit of everything. The balance of types to fruit/veggies will also vary as to seasons and breeding times...
Observing what they eat and what changes is also an interesting part of Keeping kakatiki _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
Hi again, Thank you so much for all the advice. A special hello & thank's to Steptoe... so the broccli is OK in small amounts so long as they are getting the clemantines or nectarines to balance it up? And there will be less veggie peelings be going into the bin in future. LOL! .. Kind Regards to all, Ziggy (& Millie & Arnie)
They love the broccollo stems, and other veggie parts we dont normally eat, like the base of cellery, carrot tops. potato peelings....
And these are the parts that have the most nutrition. _________________ My Spelling is Not Incorrect...It's 'Creative'
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