When do Keets Breed

User Question
Hello! I have had my keet Petie for about 5 or 6 years; he is very friendly to us. He has lived through several cage-mates over the years but his current one, Penny has been with him for about 1 year. Penny isn't friendly to us, but Petie loves her all the same. They also have a third cage-mate, Pretty Bird, whos been with us for a couple of months.

I have two Quaker Parakeets who are experienced breeders. They live on the second story just above the keets. From experience, we knew how to read the signs and about a week ago we were pleasantly suprised to see that penny had laid an egg. I don't think Petie is successfully fertilizing eggs even though he loves to go up and watch the quakers mating :) so he should know the ropes. So my questions:

Ive looked through the archives and noticed the stress on the need to contact a vet and really read up on keet breeding. Now, how important is this? We have lots of experience, so IS this really neccesary?

Second, Penny insists on scooping out all the seeds in her dish and using the dish as her nest which is positioned in the most exposed part of her cage. Sometimes she misses and the eggs land on the cage floor and crack. So we got her a more luxurious cup, filled it with pine shavings, and put in the back corner for privacy and space. She still tries to use the dish (of course we had to buy an auxilary dish to actually keep the food in). Any advice?

Also, its the middle of winter! What is she thinkin! Our Quakers are on a strict spring to fall season, so i was just a little confused...

Does Pretty Bird present a problem? She is a female, and she loves her home with Pete and Penn so I would hate to have to remove her...

Sorry for the lengthly explination, I hope you can reply, Thanx!

Lisa's Answer
Sometimes the third bird will be jealous and actively harass the chicks and such, but if they are a happy group right now, I wouldn't add more stress by breaking them up. Just make sure they have a large enough cage and enough food dishes that everyone feels comfortable and non-jealous.

Many animals mate whenever they want, especially when they are inside. None of these birds are wild, they are in a temperature controlled environment. They might not have any idea of what the weather is like outside to get their cues even if they did care about season :)

Birds make their own decisions about what an appropriate nest area is, so the most you can do is try to influence them. You could of course completely remove the existing seed cup so she has no choice, or lay that cup within a larger water dish or something so it is the same cup but more protected.

I always recommend every keet get a check-up before it begins breeding, and that would be in addition to the new bird checkup that ensures the new bird is not bringing any disease into your existing flock. So if you haven't done either of those things, now is definitely the time to do it, before you have tiny keets with low immune systems introduced into the group. When you are getting the checkup you can talk about breeding then and see if the vet has any suggestions. No matter how much any of us learn by trial and error, it is always valuable to talk to someone who has been trained in a given field.

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