How to breed alexandrines
How to breed alexandrines – By Wouter Dierckx
Introduction
My name is Wouter Dierckx and I live in a small city in Belgium. I have been bitten by the bird microbe since I was 6 years old. I then had parakeets, canaries, Agapornis, cockatiels, and my first pair of ringnecks. However, I grew up and went to live in an apartment in Ghent. My passion for birds has faded into the background. However, it continued to itch and 7 years later I moved into a house with a large garden and I decided to focus solely on the beautiful and large alexandrine parakeets with which I have been working for 5 years. I currently have 10 couples, of which only a few reached adulthood.
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There are 5 types to distinguish:
1) Psittacula eupatria eupatria: found in South India
2) Psittacula eupatria nipalensis: found in Northern India
3) Psittacula eupatria magnirostris: found on the Andaman Islands
4) Psittacula eupatria siamensis: found in Thailand
5) Psittacula eupatria avensis: found in Burma
Housing alexandrines
The alexander parakeet with its 50 to 60 cm (head to tail) is a bird that needs a lot of space. My alexanders are housed in flights of 4m; I count 1m for the night loft. The width is 1 m. The dimensions of the wire are 19x19x1.45mm. It is important to offer the birds fresh seeds, fresh fruit or vegetables, and freshwater every day. Fresh willow branches to nibble on are also appreciated. During breeding we regularly offer fresh egg food and when they have young, daily. It is also very important to keep the lofts clean. I clean mine every week and every year everything is thoroughly disinfected.
How to breed alexandrines
The alexander parakeet usually starts to breed early in the spring. The breeding block has dimensions of 35 cm in the square, a height of 70 cm, and an entry hole of 8 cm. In theory, alexanders can reproduce around the age of 3 years, but in practice, this is usually between 4 and 5 years. I hang my nest boxes in mid-February so that it is not too cold and that there are no problems with egg-bound or frozen eggs. The male will start to make a display with his wings and his eyes will be pin-pointed and fed to the female. She will go into the nest box and gradually start laying eggs every 2 days. Layers consist of 3 to 5 eggs that are only incubated by the female.
After 7 days of incubation or 10 days after the first egg, you can see with a flashlight whether the eggs are fertilized. You will then see a small embryo if the eggs are fertilized. After about 24 days the eggs hatch and after 10 days the eyes open. This is also the time to ring. I use 8 mm rings, although 8.5 mm is also recommended. I even know breeders who use 7 mm rings. After 2 months the youngsters leave the nest and after 4 months they are independent and can be separated from their parents. For the sex determination of the youngsters, I use a laboratory where you just send some feathers and after a few days, I receive a certificate in the mailbox with the sex of the bird that was determined by DNA. Males get a collar after 2 years, but the females don’t.
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