** ALEXANDRINES **

My name is Chris I live in Caboolture, about 40minutes from Brisbane Queensland. I have had caged or pet birds most of my life. Some of the birds I have had are finches, budgies, parrots as well as birds from Cockatoo family. Over the last 3 years I have been collecting and breeding Asiatics. These birds are amazing, there very intelligent and make good hand reared pets.

At present I have 12 suspended cages which never seems to be enough. There is always another bird that you want, but no space. I build my own aviaries, it’s allot cheaper and you get the reward of self achievement seeing the final product with your birds in them. The suspended cages that I build are in banks of 4.The total length is about 3.3m by 2.5m split into 4 cages. There are 2 main types of cages, suspend or conventional. The reason that I

use suspended is that, there a lot less maintenance on cleaning and the birds aren’t picking up bacterial disease off the floor. One year I built a conventional cage for breeding and the upkeep was to big ,you don’t realize how much cleaning is involved till you compare them with a suspended. Another benefit is that they can be relocated without a lot of fuss.

At present I have 3 pairs of Lutino mutations. These are birds that carry the Lutino gene. In this mutation you can have Lutino and split for Lutino Cocks and Lutino Hens. To get a pure bird takes a lot of years due to waiting for birds to mature as well as not getting what you want out of the nest to breed for your next generation. Fertility is another big problem for some reason. When I mate these birds I always mate them with a pure Green Alexandrines. This improves size

and hopefully improves fertility. I haven’t heard of any Lutino Cocks in Australia. In over seas countries they have a lot of mutations of Alexandrines for e.g. Blues, Albino, Cinnamon, and Pastelsand Pied. In years to come I hope to breed more mutations of the Alexandrines, but without a doubt there are a lot of breeders already doing so.

All my parrots are on seed, but this is not a good diet by its self. They also need fruit and vegetables. All my birds receive fruit or vegetables every day as well as soaked seed every 2 days. Alexandrines will eat just about everything you give them. I give them a wide range for e.g. corn, carrots, silver beet, pumpkin, peas, beans, apples, oranges, bananas, watermelon, paw paw, custard apples, chilies. They also

like scrambled eggs and chicken drumsticks, they eat the flesh bits as well as the marrow inside the bone. There is one important rule for Parrots don’t give them avocado it kills them.

you breed these birds the more little bits of information you gather for next season. Every breeder has tips on what they do to improve fertility and clutch size as well as things that turn the birds on. Remember one thing, if the birds are in top condition and housed well they should do all this with out prompting.

Alexandrines and Indian Ringnecks are relatively easy to breed. My last couple of season I have only had a couple of pairs lay infertile eggs. This was due to immature birds and one pair didn’t get on together. The more

If you have any Questions/Queries/Purchasing Information please do not hesitate to send me an email at