Breeding and Preserving the Family Loriidae

Abstract

I have been raising lories as a hobby since I was seven years old but it is only in the last seven or eight years that it actually became a business. I had not owned any lories for quite a while and happened to obtain a couple of pairs in a trade (that was back when lories were considered messy and hard to take care of). I tried them again at that time and was hooked. I have many more lories now, and have removed all other species to concentrate completely on lories.

In 1985, I heard Stan Sindel (New South Wales, Australia) speak on lories at the AFA convention in San Francisco. He told me about a powdered diet he had been working on for several years and mentioned that it was working very well. I told him I would like to try a dry diet here in this country. I worked with the dry formula about three years and finally put it on the market, primarily because whenever I spoke on lories, everyone was interested in what I fed, and when I mentioned a dry formula, many wanted to buy it.

The powdered diet is what I want to stress at this time. This makes feeding and maintaining these birds much easier. I am sure you have heard how messy lories are ... you put them into a flight and in two days the place is a mess. That's because they eat a nectar diet. The droppings are like water and they can shoot them horizontally as well as vertically. The powdered diet does thicken up the droppings considerably.

In experimenting to develop a formula conducive to breeding lories, I let the birds tell me what they liked. I have 90 lory cages set up and was able to put ten on this, ten on that formula, etc. Lories are some of the easiest birds with which to try new foods, because they are so curious.

I experimented with some of the common Green-napes. I set up four pairs I knew had raised young and gave them just the dry diet and water, nothing else. I wanted to see if they would raise babies on it and all four did so. However, I don't recommend feeding the dry diet exclusively to breeding pairs. My pairs have been very successful on a regimen that consists of: 70 % dry, 15 % nectar, 15 % fresh fruit. I now have some birds that have been on the diet for four years and they are doing fine. I have also achieved breeding results into the third generation as of this year.

The formula is a fine flour consistency. I tried pellets and crumbles, and the birds do not like it. This food is more like the pollen from a flower, which is a very fine powder. It is natural for them and may be why they went for it so quickly.

I received one comment that someone lost some lories because of a build-up of food around the beak. After talking with a couple of veterinarians, in their opinion, it could have been due to an existing candidiasis. So, if you observe an obvious problem such as this, have it checked.

One point I would like to make is that some of the varieties, such as the Stella's, the Fairies, and the Duyvenbodes, are a bit more reluctant to go to the new food than others. These birds may lose some weight initially. When the weather is really cold, I add some sweet nectar to their diet. Without the nectar, you could have some birds lose weight. The dry formula may not contain enough carbohydrates for extreme cold conditions. The birds begin to lose weight. The problem doesn't seem to occur in the summertime. Lories are so active that the nectar just goes right through them. They need more carbohydrates than seed eaters.

 

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