Breeding Question

[Shyloh]

Hi everyone, I have what will hopefully be a quick question.

I got my GCC Mika in July, He/she is now 9 months old. In November, I bought my mom a pearly conure. Now we don't know the sex of either of them and Luna is estimated at 7 months. Luna was a rescue so all we know is that our friend who runs the rescue, says they were about 5 months when we brought Luna home. We plan on getting them DNA tested shortly.

Now my question is this, Mika keeps standing on top of Luna, and people I've talked to have said that this is a mating thing. Now my question is, can a pearly and a GCC even breed? And is this actually mating behaviour?

I personally don't want to breed Mika, I've heard that their personalities change a lot when bred and I really don't want that, on top of that I'm in school and won't be able to hand feed any babies like I would want to.

They don't have a nesting box and don't even share a cage so I don't even know if I'm worrying for nothing.

Thanks in advance!

 

[SilverSage]

You are wise to choose not to breed her don't get me wrong, I'm a breeder myself so I'm obviously not opposed to breeding when done correctly, but for several of the reasons you have mentioned as well as others, I agree that this isn't the time.

Yes, your two birds CAN breed, and the resulting offspring would be a hybrid. While some people do this intentionally, especially in Macaws, I personally frown on producing hybrids which are anything other than an OBVIOUS AND INTENTIONAL hybrid (which is a whole can of worms that we don't need to get into here). A hybrid between these two species is likely to be mistaken for one or the other, and there is ALWAYS a chance that they in turn will be bred someday no matter what home you place them in as babies. This can lead to unintentional muddying of the gene pool which is not at all a good idea, particularly with how difficult it is to get new blood into the country. So in answer to your question, yes they CAN breed and likely WILL if you let them, but please don't.

Here is an article on preventing Such things I hope it helps!

http://www.silversageaviaries.com/handlinghormones/


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