IndianRingNeck.com

Hi,

I'm from kalyan, india.

Yesterday my uncle bought two pahadi popats(Means "Hill Ringneck" in the local tongue) from a local pet store. They are about 45 days old. These varieties are bigger than the average ringneck and can be identified by the red patch on both sides of its wings. I believe they are known as alexandrine ringnecks in the western world. Here, they are called by several names like "nepali/pahadi/himalayan/hill ringneck". They are only found in the "hill" regions.

I own one smaller well known indian ringneck. It is about 32 days old. Its beak is a little big in size compared to the other chicks so the pet store guy determined that it was probably a male. It always runs to a corner to hide. Hopefully, I'll earn it's trust in the next few weeks.

I don't plan to keep my ringneck in a cage. Home grown birds will most likely end up as predator food if they escape so I plan to clip its wings regularly. I have tied a few rods around the rooms where it can spent its time.

thank you for reading

added later: photos

hill ringnecks: uncle preparing gram paste
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hill ringnecks: after meal. feathers wet
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IRN: my mother playing with them
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The hill RN's are very active and demanding. The IRN was in a terrified state when I got him. He would duck his head and run for cover all the time so it was very hard to hold him or feed him in the beginning. After a few days, the IRN has became lazy. Now he's no longer scarred and spends the days stretching and grooming his feathers. That's him in the last two pics rested. He naps on one leg while the other leg is stretched out like a dog. I couldn't stop staring the first time I saw it.

Hi and welcome here, Wishing you lots of luck with your Alexandrine babies. But please get a cage for them to spend time in and consider it as their home. Even though you won't be keeping them locked up in the cage all day.

Ash

I've bred a colony of pigeons in the past as a hobby. I used wooden door boxes for them.

Do RN's in the wild prefer resting on a branch or a nest hole?

edit: I've added pics in the first post

Hi Broadway,

Sad but your photos are not coming through. Not sure if it's your method of posting or the fact you cannot post photos until you reach a minimum number of posts (something like ten). Can't wait to see them later!

Yes, the forum won't allow me to post proper http links because I'm new.

post each link in browser and hit go

it will only work if you remove the "space" before "com/"

album link
tinypic. com/useralbum.php?ua=aVT91Bsm2JJEB49g8dGm0A%3D%3D

I'm getting the first picture - my first thought is "AWWWW! Look at that!" I love how they are coming to him for food. So cute.

Some updates:

The IRN is 58 days old today.

Diet: He has refused eating from the syringe. His beak is not strong enough to crush millets/seeds so he won't eat those. He doesn't like cold fruits from the fridge and runs. He likes chewing soaked(overnight) grams. He likes funnel seeds and sesame seeds. Feeding him has become a struggle since he won't eat enough on his own.

Flying: He has started flying like crazy all around the house since the last week. At first it was beautiful to watch but it soon turned horrific as he kept hitting walls, sometimes in full speed. He does not have a sense of navigation yet but he is learning. He has started flying from one room to another but still makes mistakes. Two feathers from its tail have broken this morning. I keep spraying him with water all over as this somewhat calms him down. He is very hyper and wants to fly all the time.

Sounds: He has started making the usual parrot sound. The volume has increased gradually and now the neighbours know that we have a parrot in our house. When I call him, he becomes very excited and runs left to right etc then he takes flight past me and lands somewhere(why?). He is able to distinguish between my voice and my mothers voice.

Since he has been raised outside the cage, he hates them during daylight. At night he WANTS to go inside. The cage has become his home. I always fear him getting hit by the ceiling fan. It's summer time and we literally soak ourselves in sweat because he is in the room and tends to fly from one spot to the other all the time.

Other thing I've learned is that these birds are highly social animals. If I won't spend time with him, it breaks his heart and it shows. Thankfully, my mother is always at home and loves to play with him. Also I'm trying to find toys for him. At this point, we are just dying to watch him eat on his own and calm down with the constant flying. He loves flying so much that I do not have the heart to clip his wings anymore. Maybe after 6 months.

Today my parrot flew away through the front door. This is the second time.

The first time it flew out the door at ~50 days old. It couldn't reach a height so it sat on a wire 10 meters aways. I ran in my underwear(its summer season) and grabbed it quickly, brought it back to the house.

This is the second time it flew away. As I mentioned in my earlier post, it loves to fly!! It had flown five houses away and sat on their roof. I was so scared as there are many crows who love eating pet parrots. In the wild, IRNs are so aggressive that they scare away the crows but this is a tamed, parrot about 60 days old who cannot even bite hard on a finger. I was so in the moment that I entered the house of this family who I never spoke too in 2 minutes, fast talked some words(they only realised that it some kind of an emergency) and climbed their roof. I haven't climbed a roof in 15 years!!

My IRN was just sitting there on the roof quiet and looking around. Usually I ask it to "step up" on my hand but this time I grabbed it like a chicken and climbed down. I was so relieved.

The thing is that I feel responsible for its safety and hence am so angry with myself. I cannot stress this fact enough that pet parrots WILL END UP as predator food(cats crows etc) if they fly away. I have lost a parrot in the past. I was 9 yrs old and my mother had brought an IRN. It flew away one day. The next day we saw a horrific site; blood soaked green feathers all across the house. It was a fk'ing crow that had got to her.

"Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me"

I have made a decision. I'm clipping my birds very soon. I cannot forgive myself if it died at the hands of a rotten crow again. It is just 60 days old baby!!! I have to train it to "fly back to my hand" before I can risk having it fly again.

One of the problems raising a hand fed bird is that it becomes "too tamed" and almost impossible to adapt back into the wild. If a pet owner buys and tames a bird then he/she is also 100% responsible and accountable for its safety. Never compromise on its safety.

Two things I hate most in this whole world: Cats and crows. I would pay money to the govt to exterminate these pests. I'm NOT kidding. They have already reduced more than a dozen bird species(sparrow, bulbul, cuckoo etc) in my neighbourhood to a rare sighting. 25 years ago, when I was a kid, the sky would fill up with birds just before twilight. Everyone would bring out a chair and watch this beautiful sight. Not any more. I only remember it now in my memories.