Stanley Rosella: Breeding, Feeding, Cage and Nest Box
The Stanley Rosella: Platycercus Icterotis
The Stanley Rosella is the smallest of the Rosella family, and unlike the other larger Rosellas which show little sexual dimorphism, the male and female Stanleys are sexually dimorphic. It is almost as if it is the link between the Platycercus and Psephotus families because the pairs in the Platycercus species are sexually dimorphic. I am not going to try and describe the colouring in words, that is always a difficult matter, but I would rather refer the reader to the colour photos accompanying the text which show the differences clearly.
Twenty to thirty years ago, before all the mutations in the various Rosella species, Stanley Rosellas was kept in most collections. However, with more and more mutations appearing in the Golden-mantled Rosella and the Crimson Rosella, there was less space available for the plain Stanley Rosella and the numbers in captivity in South Africa slumped and they became scarce. Fortunately for the Stanley Rosella, the first mutations have begun to appear, and this has begun to awaken interest in the species once again.
Stanley Rosella Mutations
A Blue mutation has been established. It has no yellow, orange or red pigments in the plumage and therefore appears as blue, grey and black. This mutation is already being bred in South Africa. I am aware of a dilute mutation and a cinnamon mutation, but I do not know whether they are available in South Africa at this time.
Feeding
When it comes to feeding, the Stanley is not a fussy eater. We fed ours a parakeet mix consisting of mixed millet and sunflower. They also were fed a supplement that contained proteins, vitamins, minerals and trace elements (High Performance Pro). The supplement was mixed with chopped and grated vegetables, carrots (including the tops if they were fresh), beetroot, sweet potatoes, cabbage, spinach, and sprouted sorghum. Not all of these were fed every day.
During the breeding season, we tried to feed sprouted seeds every day, especially when there were babies in the nest. The adults seemed to go for the sprouted seeds first when feeding young.
One of the advantages of this species for breeders who live in town is that they are the quietest of all the Rosella species and therefore are not likely to annoy neighbours. Some literature says that they can be kept in “mixed collections”. I presume that the literature meant finches and doves but it is not clear. +It is my belief that other parakeets, being larger, will harass them. Breeding pairs should have an aviary to themselves.
Aviaries
Although these are the smallest rosellas it does not mean that they need a small aviary. For them to exercise properly they need space and that means that the aviary needs to be long enough. I don’t know if there is a definite ideal length. We found that they did well in suspended aviaries 2.7 m to 3 m long x 900 mm x 900 mm wide and high. These were suspended 1.1 m above the ground. Walk-in aviaries 3 m t0 3.6 m long x 900 mm wide could be equally successful. The width needs to be wide enough for the pair to fly past each other without striking their wing tips.
Our aviaries were a standard 900 mm wide, so while the birds might be able to manage a slightly narrower aviary, we never tried it. It must be mentioned these birds like to spend time in the ground pecking around for seeds. This makes them vulnerable to parasitic infections, so if you have walk-in aviaries you must deworm your birds regularly. I think that three times a year should be sufficient, once before the breeding season, once after the breeding season and once in the middle of the off-season.
One-third of the length of the aviary was covered to protect the birds from sun and rain. Our aviaries were made of welded mesh 13 mm x 25 mm opening and a wire diameter of 1.6 mm. This is quite a rigid wire, so it made construction easy and very strong. I have seen 13 x 13 mesh and thinner wire work well but, in that case, framing was very important to keep the wire taut.
Sturdy perches were placed at either end of the aviary to encourage the birds to fly, and the perch diameter was selected so that the birds could grasp the perch comfortably.
Nest box
The nest boxes we used were standard Parakeet nest boxes such as are commonly used for Ringneck parakeets: 450 mm x 250 mm x 250 mm with a 75 mm layer of fine pine wood shavings. The hens would then chew these shavings into coarse chips. It is interesting to note a historical observation by Rosemary Low. She tells us that in 1970 the Parrot Society in England examined the breeding results of 22 pairs of Stanley Rosellas and found that the success rate was highest among those pairs that bred in boxes 250 mm square and 470 mm high. I think that this size is most certainly coincidental and that these nest boxes are a commonly used parakeet boxes. However, it did confirm that our results were close to the mark!
Having discussed nest boxes, I must say that I have also seen them bred in hollow logs instead of boxes, and they seemed to be very successful, but I, unfortunately, did not get the dimensions of the log nests.
Stanley Rosella Breeding
They are seasonal breeders, starting to lay in August here in South Africa and weaning their babies by November. It is now some years ago that we bred Stanley Rosellas, and although some pairs bred regularly, we found that some pairs were difficult to breed. Now that they are much more domesticated, breeding may be easier, but I don’t think that they breed as easily as a Golden-mantled Rosella.
In our experience, the Stanley was not double brooded, but we did not ever pull eggs to get them to lay a second clutch. Now that we have valuable mutations, it is possible some breeders will try to do this to increase numbers of new colours. We will have to wait and see how successful they are.
Stanley Rosella Conclusion
This will be a very rewarding species to breed in the future. Now is the time to buy a few young pairs and get them breeding to have your own home-bred birds to breed with the new mutations.
