Breeding plucked parrots

[mariec]

I was reading some interesting articles about genetics, behavior and personality traits.

It made me a bit fearful for Tui. Both her parents where plucked.

Should we breed plucked birds and birds with other negative traits?

Could the high rate of feather plucking maybe being breed in to a certain degree?

 

[Billie Faye]

Personally, I wouldn't breed birds that are plucked...
What do you consider negative traits?

 

[Bokkapooh]

A bird that is plucked, or has any kind of feather condition or behavioral attitude problem, should not be bred. Its not that its genetic. But something is personally wrong with that bird, and that should be dealt with before trying to pass off the problem for nothing and breed it.

 

[mariec]

Personally, I wouldn't breed birds that are plucked...
What do you consider negative traits?

I love my plucker, so please understand I'm using the term negative trait in a loving manner.....

So for the purpose of this post let's just consider it to mean the less desirable traits such as a more than the norm aggressive nature, nervous disorder, feather picking, etc.

I really don't want to see this post become judgmental. However I have family that breeds dogs and horses, and personality traits are one of the major determining factors of who gets breed with who, or for that matter gets breed at all.

I'm curious if this sort of discriminative breeding is being done more with parrots.

I visited two breeders when I got tui, and it was obvious that they did not do discriminative breeding, but were just breeding any pair that would breed. I didn't really think much about it at the time, but I recently looked at a cites breeding program for parrots and they were using very discriminative breeding practices. It just got me thinking....

 

[jmfleish]

I love my plucker, so please understand I'm using the term negative trait in a loving manner.....

So for the purpose of this post let's just consider it to mean the less desirable traits such as a more than the norm aggressive nature, nervous disorder, feather picking, etc.

I really don't want to see this post become judgmental. However I have family that breeds dogs and horses, and personality traits are one of the major determining factors of who gets breed with who, or for that matter gets breed at all.

I'm curious if this sort of discriminative breeding is being done more with parrots.

No, this type of discriminative breeding is really not being done with parrots at this time.

 

[Billie Faye]

On the whole, I agree with Jen...people who breed "show" birds like Tiels/etc are the ones who are looking / doing more of this...
but with Zon/Toos/Macaws...anything goes if they like each other...that is the sad part of the breeding of parrots....the birds aren't really choosing their "mates" like they would in the wild...

 

[JLcribber]

I visited two breeders when I got tui, and it was obvious that they did not do discriminative breeding, but were just breeding any pair that would breed.

That would be the norm. They are most always thinking of the bottom line and any pair that will breed is money in the bank. Tragic and sad.

 

[Greycloud]

With out being judged because this is the breeder section, therefor a safe topic, I used to breed many species of parrots. True, we chose the mates of many. However, if they react in a negative way to eachother they are separated and a new mate found. Yes, some parent birds pluck. There has been discussion as to whether this is genetic or hereditary. I have raised non pluckers from plucking parents. I have raised aggressive babies to calm parents.
In the parrot world it would be nice that parent birds are all sweet with no behavioral or aggressive tendencies. This is just not possible. Parrots bond with their mates and will be aggressive to protect each other. This does not mean they cannot produce well adjusted, friendly babies. Here lies the task of the breeder/handfeeder, in socializing wonderful babies. Just my experience!

 

[atvchick95]

none of my birds pluck their self

but i've had 2 different pair of lovebirds, that the female plucks the male when they go to nest - it doesn't matter if you switch males or not. They do it every time with every male.

they've never plucked their self OR the babies. They're GREAT mom birds

Why they pluck their mates? I have not yet figured it out , its not aggression, or hatred or anything they just do it and the one is VERY FAST about it, The male will be fine when i go into shut the light out, the next morning half his wing is plucked bald, and he lets her do it, He doesn't "cry out" (I would hear that since once the light is out the birds room is silent, and they're right next to my bedroom) nor does he try to get away.

Once all their eggs are laid though I remove him (even though he hates it and it stresses him out even being in a cage RIGHT BESIDE HER he wants with her!) it used to be She didn't start doing it until the babies hatched (thats how I knew they were starting to hatch) but now she does it right off the bat

oh and their babies do not pluck either.

This pair did it with the previous owner as well, and I can guarantee you they are living a better life here and being fed a whole lot better here than they were there, So I doubt it's the environment or what they're being fed


but in general you shouldn't breed birds who pluck, most will pluck their babies then the babies learn this and pluck their self or other birds and if they're bred their babies
but since this has never happened with my 2 lovebird pairs who do it (well one now, because I no longer have the other female who was plucking her mate) I still breed them NOW if the tables were turned and they plucked the babies then no I wouldn't breed them any more

But I do think There is a huge difference between breeding a bird who plucks in general (that most likely would be a "health issue" , and breeding a bird who only plucks while breeding - rather its their self or their mate. I don't consider all of these types "health issues"




I had it happen with a pair of budgies, their 1st ever clutch went smooth. Second clutch I checked the babies before turning out the lights all were fine , checked the following morning to find one covered in blood and missing a lot of feathers - and since it was only the mom in the cage (I'd removed the dad several days before, so they wouldn't try to have a 3rd clutch) I knew it was her, I removed the babies Hand fed them and she was sold as a PET ONLY I didn't want to take the chance of it becoming an on going thing (like egg eaters) So she was stricktly sold as a Pet only and the people who bought her was WARNED about why she is now a pet only. and they had no intentions on breeding they wanted a pet only So that worked out great.


But we breed for mutation and temperament(along with bigger healthier birds than you would ever get a pet shop) . most of the time my pairs pick their own mate. but there are times We pick the mates for them. BUT since all my birds are laid back, Mellow and generally nice Those traits get passed on, even if I'm breeding for mutations

 

[jmfleish]

none of my birds pluck their self

but i've had 2 different pair of lovebirds, that the female plucks the male when they go to nest - it doesn't matter if you switch males or not. They do it every time with every male.

they've never plucked their self OR the babies. They're GREAT mom birds

Why they pluck their mates? I have not yet figured it out , its not aggression, or hatred or anything they just do it and the one is VERY FAST about it, The male will be fine when i go into shut the light out, the next morning half his wing is plucked bald, and he lets her do it, He doesn't "cry out" (I would hear that since once the light is out the birds room is silent, and they're right next to my bedroom) nor does he try to get away.

Once all their eggs are laid though I remove him (even though he hates it and it stresses him out even being in a cage RIGHT BESIDE HER he wants with her!) it used to be She didn't start doing it until the babies hatched (thats how I knew they were starting to hatch) but now she does it right off the bat

oh and their babies do not pluck either.

This pair did it with the previous owner as well, and I can guarantee you they are living a better life here and being fed a whole lot better here than they were there, So I doubt it's the environment or what they're being fed


but in general you shouldn't breed birds who pluck, most will pluck their babies then the babies learn this and pluck their self or other birds and if they're bred their babies
but since this has never happened with my 2 lovebird pairs who do it (well one now, because I no longer have the other female who was plucking her mate) I still breed them NOW if the tables were turned and they plucked the babies then no I wouldn't breed them any more

But I do think There is a huge difference between breeding a bird who plucks in general (that most likely would be a "health issue" , and breeding a bird who only plucks while breeding - rather its their self or their mate. I don't consider all of these types "health issues"




I had it happen with a pair of budgies, their 1st ever clutch went smooth. Second clutch I checked the babies before turning out the lights all were fine , checked the following morning to find one covered in blood and missing a lot of feathers - and since it was only the mom in the cage (I'd removed the dad several days before, so they wouldn't try to have a 3rd clutch) I knew it was her, I removed the babies Hand fed them and she was sold as a PET ONLY I didn't want to take the chance of it becoming an on going thing (like egg eaters) So she was stricktly sold as a Pet only and the people who bought her was WARNED about why she is now a pet only. and they had no intentions on breeding they wanted a pet only So that worked out great.


But we breed for mutation and temperament(along with bigger healthier birds than you would ever get a pet shop) . most of the time my pairs pick their own mate. but there are times We pick the mates for them. BUT since all my birds are laid back, Mellow and generally nice Those traits get passed on, even if I'm breeding for mutations

They pluck each other during breeding season to line the nest. This is pretty common behavior and I wouldn't consider these birds plucking birds.

It's hard to tell what's hereditary and what isn't and I don't think we understand our parrots well enough or have been breeding them long enough to know a whole lot. I've read the discussions on whether or not plucking is inherited as well and it's just too hard to tell. Common sense would tell you not to breed birds together who show behaviors that you wouldn't want to pass down to the babies, but is plucking truly a trait that gets passed down? I'd say not really. There are a zillion different reasons for plucking and it's so hard to pin down just one reason for the behavior. Generally a bird who is plucking is doing it for a number of different reasons which is another reason why we have such a hard time solving the problem...we may figure out one or two causes but don't hit them all.

As for breeding for temperament, there are a few breeders out there who do, but so far, it seems that most parrot breeding is more based on color than anything else.

 

[srtiels]

When I first started breeding several other breeders said that if you had a bird that plucked it's baby it get rid of it. In otherwords pass the problem to someone else. They also said to get rid of the offspring from a plucking parent. Well I learned this is BS, and many times one person parrotting what they have heard, and few people bothered to take the time to see if this info was viable.

At the time I had one or two plucking parents. What I learned is sometimes the plucking can also be a result to a sodium defeciency. New pinfeathers emerging will have trace amounts of sodium. I held back the babies from these pairs to see if they in turn were pluckers, and was pleased to learn that no, it was not an inherited trait.

The same with adult birds that were pluckers. I had some that were plucking themselves and their mates bald. After treating for giardia, I started doing a rule out and discovered the cause was an allergic reaction to synthetic vitamins in their food. I changed to plain unfortified diet, added UV lighting for the inside birds and this stopped. I have not had a plucking cockatiel since 1995.

 

[Arachloroptera]

This is an interesting topic. There is every reason to believe that as all animal species can be selectively bred why not birds? Right now we are still in the infancy of parrot breeding. Captive breeding has been going on for approx. 30 to 40 years which is not long at all. I believe that as we move into the future there will come a time when selective breeding will occure on a larger scale but as of yet bloodlines are of little interest in the bird breeding and buying community. Birds that are being shown for competition like cockatiels are being selective bred. I am a macaw person and I do breed ... I will not let my birds pluck. If a pair starts to pluck they are removed from their breeding flight and returned to runnabouts (connected perches with no cage) I have a pair of Rubys that layed and brooded a clutch of infertile eggs. The eggs were removed and they layed again. During the brooding of the second clutch the female began overpreening the male and his feathers looked shabby. They were removed from the flight. The eggs were again clear so no problem interrupting them. This is how I feel about my birds but my livelyhood does not depend on selling babies. If I were a African Grey breeder I would not buy plucked breeding stock. These are just my opinions on the subject.