parakeets(or barred parakeets/bolborhynchus lineola) original habitat, are the
high mountains of South-Mexico to West-Panama.
There we find the original bird which is green of color and about 19
cm/7.5" in length.
bird is mostly emerald green in color, in which the head and neck and the
middle of the underside are more yellowish brown of color. The upper and the
lower part of the body feathers, have a fine black border. The bill is horned
colored. The legs are grey and the eyes are yellowish brown.
In young birds the legs, bill and feathers have a lighter color.
lineolated parakeets eat all kinds of seeds from grass seeds, berries
and even insects. We can usually find these birds in groups of 30, high in the
trees. They can fly great
distances without being seen.
birds are very quiet. When they are tame, they are very affectionate and very
loving. It is preferable to buy hand reared birds, because wild caught are
birds are fairly hardy and very active in a large cage or flight. Especially
in the morning and early evening these birds can be seen hanging upside
down from the wires of the cage.
most outstanding characteristic between the sexes, is that, the male birds
have the end of the tail black, for one or even two centimeter.
The female birds don't have the black on the tail, or have only a
little piece of black. Also the
black spots on the wings and the rump are more accentuated on the male birds.
you have lutino (yellow) or albino (white) birds, you will have to go to the
veterinary surgeon to have your birds sexed.
to give these birds a good mixture of seeds and especially great for them are
pieces of sweet fruit (apples) and a little bit of common oat (which they like
is recommended to wait till the birds are a full year old before breeding, so
that the birds have the time to mature and fully develop.
breeding with mutations of these parakeets, it is recommended to use large
cages. For nesting-box you can
use the same as you find with budgies, filled up with wood shavings.
parakeets are very easy to keep for breeding.
The female birds lays a total of five to seven eggs, one every two
days, and incubates alone for 23 days. The male bird takes care of the
alimentation problems, and helps only in a few isolated instances with
is best to look every day in the nesting-box to check if everything is fine.
If done on a regular basis before breeding the female will be fine . The
little birds grow quickly and leave box after a period of six weeks.
After a few weeks more the birds are able to leave the parents and start their
have 3 mutations. Lutino, blue, dark green and all combinations of those.
green (one factor of darkness) donkerfactor)
(two factors of darkness)
SERIE : (YELLOW)
Dependig on the number of factors of darkness the colours of these birds goes
from light till very dark yellow (almost orange)
birds are not totally white like some other mutations in parakeets but they
have a little yellow shine (crème) over the body. For that reason that are
usually called 'crème-inno'.