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Peachfaced Lovebird agapornis rosecollis
Masked Lovebird agapornis personatus
Fischers Lovebird agapornis fischeri
Abyssinian lovebird agapornis taranta
Black Cheeked Lovebird agapornisnig nigrigenis
Nyasa Lovebird agaspornis lilianae
Madagascar Lovebird agapornis Cana
Red faced lovebird agapornis pullarius
Black-Collared Lovebird agapornis swindernianus |
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General description
Length: 6.5 ins (16.5 cm)
Cock: General plumage green, slightly lighter on the underparts; forehead, lores and periopthalmic ring red; wing feathers rich green; flight feathers black; under wing coverts black; tail green; lateral feathers marked with yellow and barred with black; bill coral red; iris dark brown; legs grey.
Hen: General plumage green; slightly lighter on the underparts; forehead, lores and periopthalmic ring green; wing feathers rich green; flight feathers black; under wing coverts green some times with black markings; tail green; lateral feathers marked with yellow and barred with black; bill coral red; iris dark brown; legs grey.
The qualities of a good specimen are
1 The body should be well formed giving a powerfull appearance
2 The wing tips should sit together neatly over the tail
3 The tail should be short and tapered
4 The head should be large, broad and almost flat on top. In the cock bird the red forehead should be bright, bold and pronounced
5 The face should be appealing with a round and bright eye
6 The plumage colour should be even, deep and clearly defined
7 The feather condition should be immaculate
8 The feet should be clean, large, strong and not turned in, and the toes should be straight and show no signs of curling inwards, there should be no scars or mutilation and all the nails should be present
9 The bill should be clean and show no signs of mutilation and bright coral red
10 Overall the bird should display an exhibition carriage and stance
The following articles have been taken from previous society msgszines
The Abyssinian learning curve
by Geoff Gale
In January 2005 I acquired an adult pair of abbys from a good friend Dave Bunney, who I consider to be Mr Abyssinian as he has done so much for these beautiful birds, I found them to be very shy birds because every time I entered the bird room they would fly straight into their nest box, and very rearly came out untill I left. I provided them with a standard budgie box with the concave left in as they do not build nests, I put a handful of sawdust in which they promptly removed. with a month the first egg of four was laid on 24.03.05. I thought this was too good to be true as they are hard to breed, and to my disappointment all the eggs where clear. No more eggs until January 2006, Four eggs, two clear, two dead in shell. That was more upsetting than a nest of clear eggs, but at least they were going in the right direction, they had two more nests of clear eggs that year.
 They were proving very hard to breed but I wasn't going to give up on them, 2007 came along and I thought 'new year new luck'. I changed the nest box to an upright parakeet nest box, this time I put in a mixture of peat and saw dustin the bottom, February came and a nest of three eggs, you guessed it all clear, October came and the hen laid another four eggs, on November 9th two chicks hatched, and another on the 11th, I was overjoyed that I had bred my first abby chicks, sadly they all died within two days, I was gutted.
2008 came and I started adding watercress to the green food I give them because of its iron content, on March 15th she started laying again, this time eight eggs were laid, I was ver supprised as she had only laid four or five eggs before, was this the watercress working or just a coincidence, this time all eight eggs were dead in shell, that was so heart breaking. I kept telling myself don't give up as the peach faced were doing wonders with young normals, lutinos, orange faced, white faced and oplines all leaving the nest boxes.
May came with a nest of four eggs and on the 10th of June I could see a chick as I looked into the nest box and another on the 12th followed, this time they bothsurvived and are now independent and on their own away from the parents at eight weeks lod, this suprised me as in all the books I've read about them the chicks don't leave the nest untill they are eight weeks old, mine came out at six weeks fully feathered and immaculte looking, not a feather out of place, I think they are a cock and a hen as one is slightly bigger, brighter in colour and has a much bolder head.
Now that I have brted from them I have fallen in love with them even more, they are so enchanting and peaceful with a lovely soft song, should I say a twitter, I will definitely try and line breed from them and get a little stud of them going, still keeping the peach faced. I feed all my birds a good quality seed mix, plus a small dish of linseed or hemp once or twice a month, plus chickweed and all other grass seeds in the garden as well as dandelion leaves, roots and cabbage leaves, The abbys have four dried figs every da as well, plus they have a never ending supply of cuttlefish as I live near the beach and mineral and oyster shell grit and soaked bread.
AGAPORNIS TARANTA
THE ABYSSINIAN OR BLACK WINGED LOVEBIRD.
BY S.J.RASHID
This lovebird has three names, Taranta:- the area from which it was found, the Taranta Pass. Abyssinian:- The old name for Ethiopia, where the Taranta Pass is located. Black winged:- due to the colour of the under wing coverts being black.
The Abyssinian lovebird is the largest of the lovebird species and probably one of the rarest. There are two species that are known, A taranta taranta and A taranta nana, The sub-species, nana, is said to live in the south of Ethiopia, and is recorded as being smaller than the nominate species. If it is, or has been, kept in captivity it is likely to have been cross bred with the recognised A t taranta.
The main colour of the body is emerald green in the back and wings which has a metallic sheen in sun light. The chest colour is slightly paler and has the lustre of velvet. The cocks have a bright red forehead, a ring of red feathers encircling the eyes, a red bill and on the cheeks there is a yellow/brown tinge to the feathers, also particular to cocks is the colouration of the under wing coverts which is black. A full grown cock will have a height of about 16 cm and weigh around 65 gms, the hens are slightly smaller, they have no red feathers on their bodies and weigh about 56 gms These birds are only found in a small part of Africa, mainly in the hills and mountain regions of Ethiopia, up to a altitude of 2800-3000m above sea level. With the civil wars and famine in those areas in recent years it is not known how many if any abyssinian's are still in the wild.
These little birds are vary hardy in their mountain habitat at the altitude in which they live the air temperature can drop below Oc/32f at night and above 40c/104f by day.
The diet of abyssinian's in the wild is quite diverse they will feed on small seeds, especially savannah grasse’s, fruits of the fig is much sort after. You can also find small flocks of between thirty and forty birds feeding heavily on the berries of the juniper tree, which is poisonous in large amounts to some birds and mammals. Also juniper berries are very high in vitamin B, much needed by the birds (many abyssinian keepers neglected this important vitamin and lost countless birds.)
The Abyssinian lovebird was introduced into aviculture at the turn of the century, firstly in to Austria/Germany, a few years later into Great Britain. Had the birds not had a need for a high intake of vitamin B there would be large numbers of breeding pairs in the aviaries of bird keepers worldwide.
The breeding season in the wild is recorded to start in April and continue through September, however there have been nests found with eggs as early as March, and with chicks being feed as late as early November.
When breeding, Abyssinian's are very territorial in their nesting area. Should another pair of birds come near the nest the resident hen will defend it vigorously, to the death if necessary. It is the hen that chooses the nest.
When cock and hen have agreed to partnership the mating display's starts, the cock will jump over and around the hen often. There is also much shaking and scratching of the head. When she is happy with his dancing she will ask the cock to feed her. This he does by regurgitating food held in his crop into the hen's open bill. It is easy to tell when a pair of Abyssinian's are treading, the cock and sometimes the hen make a curious sound which is not made by any other lovebird.
The nest site chosen is usually small a crack in rocks or the dead limb of a tree. When the nest has found to be adequate it will not only be used for breeding but as a continuous roost for many years. Very little nesting material is taken in to the nest. Materials found in nests have included bits of grass, bark, leaves, and the chest feathers of the hen.
The hen will lay one, sometimes two, eggs before she commences to incubate, a clutch may consist of between two and four eggs on rare occasions five have been known. The egg is of a similar size to a Peach face's, having the same white shell as do many parrot like. Incubation time is twenty-four to twenty-five day's.
On the first day the chick will be sparsely covered with a grey/white down which will rapidly thicken as the chick grows, at around seven weeks the chick is fully feathered and is ready to leave the nest. When the chicks emerge from the nest they have the appearance of hens in that there are no red feathers on the head of any cock chicks.
After fledging the offspring will stay close to their parents as they continue to feed the chicks for several weeks. Unlike most other lovebirds, the young of abyssinian's are tolerated and they remain with the parents to form family units. I have been told that the previous year’s clutch will help the parents to feed and support the next clutch.
In England the number of pairs of Abyssinian's is very tow, amongst the ten keepers of this species that I know there are only thirty pairs. When these birds come onto the open market they are snapped up, but more often than not birds are exchanged between breeders so that they can build a gene pool so that the stock held in captivity is not plagued with inbreeding. The average price of these birds is between £300 and £400.
The Society's rare species officer informed me that the Society has recorded only 46 pairs, 6 odd cock and 4 spare hens known to them, and in the breeding season for 1992 there were only 18 chicks reared to maturity. Other pairs are known of but are not registered with the Society because of fear that the whereabouts of these birds may be found out by persons known or unknown who would like to separate birds from their owners.
When keeping abyssinian lovebirds in captivity they are best kept as one pair to an aviary, in which should be a number of perches of various sizes so that problems like sore feet are avoided. Also add toy's for the birds to play with as they are intelligent and very playful, with a favoured toy they will amuse themselves for hours. When watching them in the aviary you may see the birds drop off the perch and fall straight to the ground as it has just dropped dead, but as it comes within inches of the floor it will open its wings, fly along the floor with great speed and back up to a perch at the other end of the aviary.
The nest boxes used are normally the same as those used by Peachfaced lovebirds with the addition of a concave put in the bottom of the box, finch boxes are also hung near the nest box so that the adults or young may roost when the nest box is not in use.
It seems that Abyssinian's take exception to being placed in an aviary next to other species of lovebirds; we found that they will use the nesting boxes, but will not breed. Our solution to this was to make a surround to hide the nest box from the view of other lovebirds, within a few weeks there were eggs in the nest boxes which unfortunately did not hatch.
When there are young in the aviary, it is sometimes necessary to found out what sex the young are before they come in to their first moult, which usually occurs when the chick is between four to six months old. A little trick that is used is to pull a few feathers from the forehead of each chick, when the feathers re-grow after a few days any that have red feathers are cocks
The diet we feed to our birds is as follows:- Seed diet: millet, canary, sunflower. buckwheat, niger, hemp, safflower, peanuts, sweetcorn, linseed, pinenuts, barley.
Fruit and vegetables: golden delicious apples, oranges, corgettes, spinach, fresh figs, carrots.and kiwi fruits.
Also the birds are feed two to three times a week on dry figs and juniper berries which are soaked overnight to make them soft.
Also added to the birds diet are vitamins (acehigh) once a week, liquid B12 (Cytacon) in water twice weekly, and probotics given when birds are breeding.
Because Abyssinian lovebirds are rare, the birds normally seen are those of the normal colour, however there are colour mutations appearing. In Germany recently at the World Show held at Bocholt I did happen to see two new colour mutations on the show bench, a dark green cock, which is very similar to the normal but the green was slightly darker, tile other was an olive hen, she had a khaki chest and the wings were of a darker shade.
Any person keeping these emeralds of the forest I wish them a successful breeding season.
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