George and Ida Van Der Togt Specialist Breeders.

Jan 2012

Our breeding season is finished now. We took our time to transfer our good young stock in a large holding aviary. We had some mixed result this year. All our handraised alexandrines have been sold. We still got some normal parent reared young available. All the rest of our offspring are split for colours. We have available some nice lacewing, stunning Lutino hens and green/split birds. The birds are socialising good together. They have lots to chew on and love fresh branches or bark of the perches to play with. We have shorted out some of the other parings of our birds. Now that we have a couple of quiet months we have transferred lots of male alexandrines in 1 huge holding aviary and the hens in the other huge aviary. We hope that time away from each other will stimulate them that by the time our breeding season starts again and the hormones are kicking in. It is easier when the parrots are all breeding at the same time. This gives us opportunities to swop young or handraise them all at the same time.

George has purchase some security cameras. We will use them not only to protect our collection but also to keep an eye out what the parrots are doing in the aviary. From inside we can see how some pairs are socialising together. Are they compatible? We can also install the camera in the nest to see what and how the incubate or feed the young’s. It is going to be exciting to see and learn more of the parrot behaviour. This will help us also to decide what to do or when to intervene if it is needed. It is always amazing that our hobby has growing in such involved past time. Every day there is still more to be learned and to be done.