Peaky Parrotlets Aviary

01/31/2025

I get asked a lot what I recommend as food for my babies aside from chop, and so thought I would share a few options I love. They can all be found at Amazon, Global Pet Foods, or many of the specialty pet stores (unfortunately not at Petsmart though). The high performance pellets should be offered until 9-10 months of age as they are higher in protein and calcium and great for supporting growth. After that you can switch to the lifetime formula which is easily found at most petstores including petsmart.

You can also make an even better seed mix using human grade seed or grain which you can find at great prices at health food stores, bulk barn, Costco and even Amazon. See the last photo for a recipe from the company Bird Tricks. unfortunately they cannot ship to Canada so they’ve shared their recipe to help us out ☺️

I’ve even included an awesome schematic for making chop! This will help make making chop easier! For grains, you can always either add
some of these ingredients dry, or add a bit of their seed mix instead.

Save this post so you can easily find it later 😄

01/31/2025

To everyone who took the time to read this long post and show their support, please accept my heartfelt most sincere thank you 🙏 It meant a lot to read your messages, and it gave me all I needed to be confident in my decision and plans. Thank you thank you thank you. ❤️

ANNOUNCEMENT

I thought I’d share my plan for the year so that those who have been wanting to get a baby in the future know what to expect.

To start, I have decided that this year I will probably only be breeding each pair once this year, not twice. All babies will be handfed. If you want to learn why, read on, but first, here’s the schedule:
- Rusty and Emmy are on eggs: Turquoise and/or blue babies anticipated to be ready for April.
- My 2 other pairs will be set up sometime in the summer, with babies being ready between September to October. Expecting blue, blue pied, green and green pied, with a chance for dark factors and small chance for a marble or two in there.
- Snowball and skittle will be set up for their first time so if they are successful then I will also possibly have turquoise, turquoise pied, blue, blue pied, and turquoise or blue marbles.

Now as to WHY!

I have realized that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find GOOD homes for my babies, and at the adoption fee that I seek. I’ve had to turn people away I did not feel would be a good fit, as I have a responsibility to the babies I put out into the world. Moreover, while there may be many good homes interested in my babies, it has been difficult to convince people of the value of ethical breeding practices and my time. This is especially challenging when there are many breeders (especially in the Toronto and Montreal area) who are willing to offer lower adoption fees. Let me explain more..

For those who don’t know, I have a full time unrelated job, and I do this as a passion so that I can share my love for this species with other people. I do not do this for a living. I am not anywhere near large scale enough to even make this a profitable business. It’s a hobby that essentially funds itself, and most revenue is put back into the betterment and care of my pairs throughout the year. The adoption fee for the babies doesn’t even come close to fairly covering the amount of TIME and MONEY that goes into my flock. It’s hard to make people understand this if they haven’t put in the time themselves to really appreciate the effort and cost. From cleaning cages every few days, to constantly buying toys/high quality dry food/fresh produce, the time it takes to offer daily chop, the cost of replacing damaged accessories like perches/cups/feeding containers/lights, to upgrading cages, to cleaning my walls and floors daily, scheduling out of cage time and supervising to prevent fights, to handfeeding and socializing babies, creating social media posts to give people updates and educate, answering questions from potential clients and supporting past clients, running up to date ads, reading to stay informed… it’s A LOT!!! A lot of time and a lot of money to keep this running.

I always get asked: Can I offer lower adoption fees like the other breeders? The answer is simply: NOT without devaluing my effort and time!!! I would hope that you would feel the same and ask for yoir worth too ❤️

So in order to continue to love doing this, and to continue to do this right, I am limiting my pairs to one clutch this year to reduce unnecessary stress on me and on them.

I hope that people will continue to follow along this journey, and engage with my content, as I love connecting with likeminded people who share my values and appreciate my approach.

And for those that are interested in a future baby: I hope that you continue to see the value in getting a baby raised by me, and don’t mind the wait. please reach out to me asap so that I know who to contact first when eggs hatch. I can’t promise any specific colors or genders, as genetics is something out of my control, but I can promise a well adjusted bird that will easily fit into your family, and who’s parents are provided lots of care and attention.

Xo

01/28/2025

ANNOUNCEMENT

I thought I’d share my plan for the year so that those who have been wanting to get a baby in the future know what to expect.

To start, I have decided that this year I will probably only be breeding each pair once this year, not twice. All babies will be handfed. If you want to learn why, read on, but first, here’s the schedule:
- Rusty and Emmy are on eggs: Turquoise and/or blue babies anticipated to be ready for April.
- My 2 other pairs will be set up sometime in the summer, with babies being ready between September to October. Expecting blue, blue pied, green and green pied, with a chance for dark factors and small chance for a marble or two in there.
- Snowball and skittle will be set up for their first time so if they are successful then I will also possibly have turquoise, turquoise pied, blue, blue pied, and turquoise or blue marbles.

Now as to WHY!

I have realized that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find GOOD homes for my babies, and at the adoption fee that I seek. I’ve had to turn people away I did not feel would be a good fit, as I have a responsibility to the babies I put out into the world. Moreover, while there may be many good homes interested in my babies, it has been difficult to convince people of the value of ethical breeding practices and my time. This is especially challenging when there are many breeders (especially in the Toronto and Montreal area) who are willing to offer lower adoption fees. Let me explain more..

For those who don’t know, I have a full time unrelated job, and I do this as a passion so that I can share my love for this species with other people. I do not do this for a living. I am not anywhere near large scale enough to even make this a profitable business. It’s a hobby that essentially funds itself, and most revenue is put back into the betterment and care of my pairs throughout the year. The adoption fee for the babies doesn’t even come close to fairly covering the amount of TIME and MONEY that goes into my flock. It’s hard to make people understand this if they haven’t put in the time themselves to really appreciate the effort and cost. From cleaning cages every few days, to constantly buying toys/high quality dry food/fresh produce, the time it takes to offer daily chop, the cost of replacing damaged accessories like perches/cups/feeding containers/lights, to upgrading cages, to cleaning my walls and floors daily, scheduling out of cage time and supervising to prevent fights, to handfeeding and socializing babies, creating social media posts to give people updates and educate, answering questions from potential clients and supporting past clients, running up to date ads, reading to stay informed… it’s A LOT!!! A lot of time and a lot of money to keep this running.

I always get asked: Can I offer lower adoption fees like the other breeders? The answer is simply: NOT without devaluing my effort and time!!! I would hope that you would feel the same and ask for yoir worth too ❤️

So in order to continue to love doing this, and to continue to do this right, I am limiting my pairs to one clutch this year to reduce unnecessary stress on me and on them.

I hope that people will continue to follow along this journey, and engage with my content, as I love connecting with likeminded people who share my values and appreciate my approach.

And for those that are interested in a future baby: I hope that you continue to see the value in getting a baby raised by me, and don’t mind the wait. please reach out to me asap so that I know who to contact first when eggs hatch. I can’t promise any specific colors or genders, as genetics is something out of my control, but I can promise a well adjusted bird that will easily fit into your family, and who’s parents are provided lots of care and attention.

Xo

01/27/2025

Literally every time lol

01/27/2025

Cuddles to get them used to me ☺️
The blue girl and the grey girl are still available for reservation and will be ready to go next week!

01/24/2025

Our most curious baby girl (who surpringly still hasn’t found a home yet) is on a mission to explore today. She has been to everyone’s cage trying to get at their pellets from the outside. Watching her be so determined is so funny! She does not want to give up. And here she is now looking to explore my nails and ring lol

If you think you would make a good home for her please pm me!

01/24/2025

One of our green babies that’s still searching for her forever home! Super sweet tame little girl. Really gentle and social!

01/22/2025

Baby parrotlets are eating their chop!

The babies enjoying it topped with a fruit salad because they got the very last portion of this chop batch and it certainly wasn’t going to be enough haha

These little ladies are still looking for their forever perch! They are super sweet and social! Please share so that they can find a loving home ❤️ located in Ottawa ON.

01/21/2025

Videos and pictures don’t do this little parrotlet justice!! He’s the perfect shade of dusty blue grey, and his white “hair” is just perfect 😍 he just started nibbling on fresh food! PM to reserve. Ottawa ON

01/20/2025

Of course now my son is trying to convince me to keep him 😂 not going to happen. We shall call him “cirrus” until he is adopted and renamed. Thanks True Feltham for the inspiration!!!

01/19/2025

Meet our little Cobalt marble pied male baby - he’s available for reservation. Will be ready to go in a couple of weeks ☺️ Pm to reserve!

01/18/2025

Parrotlets!!

3 parrotlet babies available for reservation. They will not be ready to leave for another few weeks when they’ve fully weaned. A non-refundable deposit is required to reserve a baby. Available:

Coparented babies:
Male marble cobalt pied baby (the light one) - RESERVED
Probably female, cobalt baby (purple blue one)
Probably male, mauve pied baby (grey blue and white)

Also still available and ready to go right now: 3 Handfed and 1 non handed babies from previous clutches

A handfed green baby girl
A handfed green pied baby girl (light green and yellow)
A handfed turquoise baby girl
A coparented green baby girl (prefer she goes with pied baby girl)

Ottawa ON.

01/18/2025

These two little parrotlets are still looking for their forever perch. Handfed and super tame. Located in Ottawa, ON. Pm for details!

01/17/2025

The Eleven Demandments of Parrotlets!! I’d say it’s pretty accurate 😂

01/13/2025

Easy infographic to follow!

01/12/2025

Spot and Coco’s babies!! Their colors are absolutely gorgeous and rare! I still can’t determine the s*x of two yet so hopefully once their feathers fully open I will know more.

Cobalt marble pied - (white, blue and purple; male)
Cobalt blue baby - (purple-blue; unsure of s*x)
Mauve pied - (grey-blue and white; unsure of s*x)

They are now 3-3.5 weeks old. If you are interested in one of them please pm me. They won’t be ready for another 4-5 weeks when fully weaned.

01/10/2025

Our green pied baby girl showing off her pretty colors! Pm if you’d like to adopt this adorable parrotlet ☺️

Located in Ottawa ON.

01/08/2025

Nutrition Post: Seeds

Parrotlets are seed eaters. But that does not mean that any seed mix will do, nor that seed should be the bulk of their diet. A varied diet made up of primarily vegetation (>%50) is ideal.

Store bought seed is not made equally. For a while I was making my own homemade seed mix for my birds because easily accessible store bought seed (the kind you get at grocery stores, walmart or even petsmart) were not of great quality (even the ones that say ‘gourmet’). They seemed to have a lot of sunflower (which they preferred but are too high in fat) and way too much millet (which they left till the end) compared to how much other seeds are in there. Keep in mind I am also feeding a large flock so economy is definitely a concern. I searched everywhere for a quality seed product that is offered in bulk and have settled on the brand Witte Molen Expert Parakeet seed mix. It’s a mid range offering that is higher in millet than I would like, but given that I feed chop daily, Iam less concerned about the variety of seed in this mix. In my care guide I will include recommendations for mid range equivalent seed mixes and higher quality seed mixes which would be very economical to choose if you have just one or two parrotlets! Of course pellets 10-20% non heat processed pellets are also recommended.

If you ever want to make your own high quality seed mix follow this mix. It’s a recipe from The Parrot’s Pantry. I have purchased everything off Amazon. Two great brands to check out are Schoen Farms and Yupik. The only seed in there that my birds did not eat dry was Kamut. It was too hard even for me to chew dry. You can even sprout these seeds which provides enrichment and prevents boredom. I added hulled sunflower seeds and safflower seeds (5%) to this mix and they loved it.