Breeding?

I have a male and female pair of quakers. I got them from a breeder that had passed away.One started to pluck because she wants to breed but had no nest box at her old home. Now they are with me and i provided a nest box and have been watching them, but i havn':greent seen them breed and they are showing no interest in the nest box i got them. Do they want to breed or should I take the box out?

:06::06:

Gosh, there are sooooo many reasons that birds pluck...

http://www.parrotforums.com/behavioral/52217-plucking-search-answers.html

Personally, if you aren't an expert in breeding, or if you have no close support/instruction, I'd take the box out. Breeding and babies can get very complicated very fast... diet issues, egg-binding, bad parenting/feeding...

Good for you for reaching out!

I highly doubt the female is plucking because it wants to breed, more likely is that it has suddenly been moved into a totally foreign environment and a total stranger is taking care of them.

Take the nest box out and let the pair settle into their new environment for a few months. They cannot be forced to breed and reproduce, and will not do so in an unfamiliar environment until they have adjusted. Even then I would advise against adding a nest box unless you have experience breeding and handfeeding or you will end up with dead babies!

Quakers do not like "nest boxes', to start with. I have a pair, and they refused to use any of the nest boxes that were available, ... However , the male did finally decide to use one as the base for his construction project,

I have a few more photos, but I suppose 2 are enough, they (the parrotts), Paco and Paca, get very upset if I get to close to the nest, so I am not sure how many eggs they have, Paca does not come out very much, so I do know she is taking care of the eggs.

I do agree, if you have no experience breeding, that may not be such a good idea, but then again, one has to start somewhere to learn. Just give them lots of sticks and branches that are non toxic for birds, mine are using mostly mesquite ,and some lilac branches, and some various places where there is some sort of support for a base. They will decide what place they like. You do need quite a bit of space.
On the "hand feeding", usually you shouldn't need to hand feed the babies, and I try to avoid needing to do that, how ever it is good to know how to deal with that, sometimes the babies can fall out of the nest, and some times the parents will not take them back.
Using the key words : will give you quite a few results, and examples of what they like, and what the nests may look like.
One result : https://www.petcha.com/wild-quaker-parrot-nests/
Is interesting, the author comments:

Twig For Me, None For You
If you have a chance to watch wild or companion quaker parrots, you will quickly notice that they are obsessive/compulsive when it comes to nest building. The wild quaker? nest can be huge, enormous and out of control. For hours at a time, we watch wild quakers flying individually and in pairs to trees close to their nest area, chewing off twigs and then flying them back to their nest.
In the home setting, you might see the quaker parrot build or weave unbelievable structures. Our pet quaker parrots, Stanley, Tashi and Miracle, are great builders, and they too are obsessive compulsive. Miracle seems to think that every stick has to be flown around the room a few times before he can put it in his cage and should it fall out the back, he?l drag it to the front and fly it around the room again

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Same for me , it is fascinating to watch Paco work, I spent /spend hours watching him. When they first paired, Paca had actually started laying eggs, but not fertilized, I was concerned because I would find eggs every where, she was not using the box I had provided,..later I noticed Paco trying to use various places, empty cages, other boxes, etc, and would start trying to use the few sticks he could find,... I finally started gathering entire branches for him, and bringing them into the aviary, once he had better material and plenty of it, he went to town, in just a few days, he had a main nest made, which is now where Paca spends most of her time, Paco still is busy ,every day, adding on to their house (nest), it is inside, a large room that is attached to the aviary, in colder weather all of the parrots pretty much stay indoors,
I guess with the Quakers, that is not necessary, but they choose to build the nest indoors.
There is both a open window, and door, that all of the parrots use to go in and out.


Sorry, on the "plucking" I don't know, I have never had that problem , with any of my owners, the parrots.
I imagine

itzjbean >> I highly doubt the female is plucking because it wants to breed, more likely is that it has suddenly been moved into a totally foreign environment and a total stranger is taking care of them

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Pretty much sums it up, give them time to get use to the new situation,... I do suspect if you give them plenty of small sticks, and twigs to play with, they will be happier, and start getting to busy with the sticks and twigs to be bothered with plucking .

I agree that your female is not plucking because of a lack of nest-box, or because she wants to mate/breed...She's in a new home with a new person, and that is more-likely the reason...And once a breeding pair, even a proven-pair, is moved to a new enviornment, they typically won't mate at all for a good, long time...I also would remove the nest-box, as you don't want them to start breeding anyway...

Nor do you want the female to start to lay infertile eggs either, which both a nest-box and adding any nesting-material, such as branches and such, can encourage...So if they are not mating or even interested in breeding, which they most-likely won't be for quite a while now anyway, but you still are providing a nest-box or any type of nesting material, you can actually cause your female to become hormonal, go into-season, and start laying slugs...Which is extremely bad for her health...

Also, make sure that you have a mineral block and a Cuttlebone inside of their cage for a while, just in case the female decides to lay any eggs, you want her to have lots and lots of Calcium before any eggs are made/laid...

If you want to start breeding birds then that's fine, but do it the responsible way. Don't encourage them to breed until you have done much research/reading about both hand-raising, hand-feeding, egg-laying and the medical problems that come along with it, like Egg-Binding, and then you have purchased all of the proper supplies and equipment you need to have on-hand before your birds even start mating, such as a Brooder, formula, syringes, etc. Even if you don't plan on hand-raising babies and you want them to be parent-raised, you must always be ready, prepared, and educated to remove them from the nest-box, house them in a Brooder, and hand-feed them multiple times every day for weeks, as it's very common for parents to refuse to feed babies, kick them out of the nest-box, start hurting them, etc.