Conure interbreeding?

[hiriki]

OK so I discovered unexpectedly today that my Jenday is actually a female! I'm excited since the day I adopted her almost 10 years ago I "decided" she was a girl (I had a 50/50 chance and I wanted her to be a girl so instead of paying money to know her biological sex I just went with it). But since then, both through my observations of behavior and my vet I had kind of concluded she was probably actually male this whole time. The DNA sexing was to prepare for introducing her to my new green cheek, who has been DNA sexed male.

Onto my question. I had assumed this wouldn't be a concern because theyd be the same sex anyway but I've been proven wrong. I know conure isn't a scientific classification and my Jenday is aratinga and my green cheek pyrrhura... but I've also heard suns (also aratinga) and green cheeks can have babies, albeit babies with all kinds of issues. Can jendays and green cheeks breed?

My jenday is at least 10 years old, if not older (she's a rescue) which I believe is outside of the "active" breeding age, and obviously my green cheek is too young (12 weeks). But once my conure goes through puberty, are oops babies even an outside possibility?

To be clear, I don't *want* babies. If I did I'd be putting birds of the same species together like a reasonable person. I just want to know how careful I need to be.

Thanks!

 

[kme3388]

OK so I discovered unexpectedly today that my Jenday is actually a female! I'm excited since the day I adopted her almost 10 years ago I "decided" she was a girl (I had a 50/50 chance and I wanted her to be a girl so instead of paying money to know her biological sex I just went with it). But since then, both through my observations of behavior and my vet I had kind of concluded she was probably actually male this whole time. The DNA sexing was to prepare for introducing her to my new green cheek, who has been DNA sexed male.

Onto my question. I had assumed this wouldn't be a concern because theyd be the same sex anyway but I've been proven wrong. I know conure isn't a scientific classification and my Jenday is aratinga and my green cheek pyrrhura... but I've also heard suns (also aratinga) and green cheeks can have babies, albeit babies with all kinds of issues. Can jendays and green cheeks breed?

My jenday is at least 10 years old, if not older (she's a rescue) which I believe is outside of the "active" breeding age, and obviously my green cheek is too young (12 weeks). But once my conure goes through puberty, are oops babies even an outside possibility?

To be clear, I don't *want* babies. If I did I'd be putting birds of the same species together like a reasonable person. I just want to know how careful I need to be.

Thanks!

Hi there, hope all is well.

Yes, conures can interbreed. I was informed by my vet that my jenday & sun can have babies.

I also do not want any more parrots. I myself have my hands full with the 3 I have. The suggestions I’ve came across were to keep them in separate cages. If I do put them in the same cage check the cage daily (which I have to anyway as my parrots are messy), and immediately pull an egg if laid. Then replace it with a fake one. Honestly I forgot to ask why to add a fake egg.

Hopefully this helps!

 

[LaManuka]

I have a princess parrot hen, Peach, who is around the 8 or 9 month old mark now. She fell instantly and immediately in love with my varied lorikeet, Lovejoy. When I took Peach to the vet for a wellness check and feather implant to fix up her terrible wing clip I told him about this romance and he informed me that he has seen a hybrid mix of a superb parrot (very closely related to the princess parrot) and a scaly breasted lorikeet. These are of course wildly different species from each other, yet they were able to produce babies! I informed him that he will NOT be seeing any such hybrids from my flock, but it would not surprise me one bit if Peach did go ahead and lay some eggs when she's a little older, even if they're not actually fertilised, simply because she may be stimulated into doing so given how madly in love she is with Lovejoy. I've got some fake eggs on standby just in case, they are VERY handy to have as @kme3388's vet suggested. If real eggs are removed your hen might very well just go and lay more until she's happy with her clutch size. Your hen can then sit on the fake eggs until she realizes for herself that they're not going to hatch, infertile clutches are sometimes produced in nature and the hen will give up trying to hatch them. It also means that if she sits on them for an extended period they won't break and leave a nasty mess that you'll need to clean off of your hen. I used them with my chronic infertile egg-laying lorikeet hen Lilly with great success. It might perhaps pay you to have a few fake eggs on standby too, but fingers crossed you won't ever need them!! 🤞🤞🤞

 

[hiriki]

I have some fake eggs for my doves--not sure if they're the appropriate size for a conure, I'll look into it and buy some more if necessary. I have the space to cage the conures separately but the intention is to put them together if they get along. I am curious what a jenday/green cheek would look like but not THAT curious 😂

Thanks for the suggestions!