Newbie in Australia

[Rayzza]

Hi everyone. I have arrived here by the good ship Google while I was trying to educate myself about African peach faces, Fischers or some other type of small parrot.
My wife is a resident in a residential aged care home and there is a large aviary in the garden which had about 22 small parrots. I thought they were African Peach Faces, but now see what I think are mutations called other things like Fischers. Excuse me if my understanding is awry.
For an interest for my wife we have staken on the role of "looking after" the birds as it seemed as though the aviary was put in by an activities team who thought it would provide an interest for the residents. The carers though, who had been left to feed and water the birds, do not have any knowledge or interest in the birds. About 2 months ago 15 suddenly died. I suspect that they were left without water for about 3 days.
Anyway the seven that are left have been making merry and now in 2 nests we have 7 young ones - 3 have come out of the nest today.
My concern is around interbreeding. It seems as though these birds have been here for 3-4 years, so now parents are probably breeding with children and grandchildren - or brothers and sisters. Is this a problem and what should I do about getting some new blood lines? Can I just go and buy some new ones and put in the aviary or will that upset existing relations?

 

[Jcas]

It’s wonderful that you and your wife are taking care of these birds and devoted to researching the best way to care for them! If these are indeed Fischer’s Lovebirds, then, like all Lovebirds, they are monogamous ( hence the name!). They aren’t like chickens, for example, who will just mate with anybody! They also live 10-15 years in captivity so there is a good chance that most if not all of the breeding/ nesting pairs are original pairs from when the birds were first purchased and are not closely related.

It is possible that new pairs forming could be related to each other. However, studies on inbreeding in captive birds shows that one of the most common issues with inbreeding is low fertility. So it’s quite possible that related birds would simply have fewer offspring. Lower hatch rate is probably not a big problem since the birds are in an aviary where space is going to be somewhat limited anyhow.

Adding new birds is always an uncertain event as you just never if the old birds will accept the new ones! So, if it were me, I would probably not rock the boat by adding new birds and would just focus on giving the best care to the existing ones. 🙂