Linnies´courtship behavior

[Charlie]

Hi

Recently I have adopted a pair of linnies that were told to be a male/female couple. I still have not DNA sexed them and one of them is a grey wing mutation which complicate things to observe sexual dimorphism. I live in Brazil and linnies are realy hard to find here, not to mention the difficulty to find good advice.

I am struggling to understand their behavior. They are really good companions to each other and seems to coppulate frequently, but so far no eggs. Most frequently it seems the coppulation ends too short to be effective.

They coppulate side by side and most of the times the female has the initiative but once the male corresponds she looses interest. Has anyone observed this before?

Is it possible that she is not yet ready as we are in the winter here and days are a bit shorter? Temperatures ranging from 12°C at night to 25°C during the day.

Does anyone knows if it is common for linnies to have same sex coppulation? I know many birds can produce same sex couples, but have not heard of same sex coppulation in birds.

Any advise or idea shared is going to be of great help as I have never had linnies before.

Thanks for the very informative forum, the only place I have found sharing substantial knowledge about that amazing species.

Cheers

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

Hi Charlie! When desiring to breed, knowing the sex of the pair is the first step. You mention that one is a greywing. Can you share a photo? Single Factor appearing Greywing can only be male. If the Greywing appears Double Factor, it can be either sex. Do you know the parentage of the bird? If only one parent is Greywing and the baby appears DF then it can only be a hen.

You asked "Does anyone know if it is common for linnies to have same sex copulation? The answer to this is yes. It is very common for Linnies to same sex pair bond and appear to successfully mate.

Is the pair closed leg banded with the hatch year? Do you know their age? Linnie reproductive life can be short, so if they are older than 6 or 7 I would say that could be part of the problem.

Can you describe how you have the breeding cage setup (pictures help), how much light do they receive a day, what are you feeding, have you ever provided a nestbox? This info will help advise you further.

 

[Charlie]

Thank you for the thoughtfull reply!

I was surprised to hear that they have a short reproductive life. I know they have a narrow ideal temperature range (thermoneutral zone), between 28°C to 30°C ( Oxygen consumption, ventilation and respiratory heat loss in a parrot,Bolborhynchus lineola, in relation to ambient temperature Theresa L. Bucher , Journal of comparative physiology volume 142, pages479–488 (1981))

Well, let me introduce you how I ended up with these linnies. I have been a bird/parrot fan and have had budgies and roseicolis lovebirds for some time. Then I was looking for another parrot/parakeet species to learn from and my girlfriend told me about the linnies. I was really impressed with the many particularities of the linneolated parakeets and start to look for a pair.

Nevertheless it is quite difficult to find anyone who has ever heard about linnies in Brazil, even more difficult to find a breeder. Eventually I´ve made contact with a person who had two (supposedly male/female) that was in his thrid "owner" and that person did not want to keep them. They were close to a neglect state and I decided to purchase them even not knowing much of their linneage or any other else aspect for that matter.

That couple is the very first linnies I ever saw, so I admit I can not even differentiate accurately a grey wing single factor from a non grey wing. I know two grey wings should not be put together for breeding purpose though.

The supposed male is a blue (cobalt) not leg banded and the supposed female is a grey wing (DF) turquoise with a leg banded that has no birth date and I suspect is a leg band for research wild birds given by the environment ministry.

Regarding the day light length, even in the winter we get 10 to 12 hours of light in Rio de Janeiro latitude.

I have put a nestbox that they entered mostly to avoid direct sunlight and to sleep. Now, after 2 months with the next box I removed it. I have no idea of their age, it was told me that they produced offspring at least once...

Some pictures here:










Thanks!!

 

[LinnieGirl]

Hi Charlie! Good questions! The reply you got from Eddies Aviary was spot on. Linnies are very comfortable being in same sex pairs and will copulate as if they were a mated pair. Unless you know the parents of the gw you have nothing to help identify its sex. The greywing is either a sf gw female or df gw male ( females cannot be df greywing). Impossible to know without dna or parentage or if it lays an egg of course. The other cobalt we need good side shots of that bird including full wing and abdomen to tail, along with a shot of the topside of the tail, to even guess at the sex.
The greywing looks to have had a nasty nasal infection causing that greatly enlarged nostril. Keep an eye on that for redness or discharge.
To trigger breeding you’ll need at least 14 hours a day of bright light, sun or artificial. Along with increased protein and soft foods and increased humidity between 55-70%. There is further information on breeding in the breeding section of this forum.
We are happy to answer any questions you may have to help you keep your linnies happy and healthy!

 

[Charlie]

Thank you LinnieGirl for your kind response!

I will try to make a better picture of the cobalt bird, it will be great to have your opinion regarding his mutation.

Indeed the greywing has a nostril scar but other than that appears to be healthy. It is the less shy between them and always curious to my presence. I have noticed both seem to be more active and curious anytime I am around. When they are left alone, they seem to prefer staying still or resting.

Humidity is not a problem here as we are surounded by Atlantic Rainforest remnascents, day length however are a bit shorter than 14hours. Regarding food I was giving them plenty of seeds, a type of egg based flour, pellets and fresh vegetables. Now I interrupted the egg based flour and reduced the vegetables as I removed the nest.

As Eddie´s said they might end their reproductive cycle around 6 years old, and I would not be surprised if those two linnies are around their 5 years old, I guess it is going to be hard to get some baby linnies around here.

I have observed that courtship is always started by the males in Budgies, may be started by both sex in roseicollis lovebirds, but I have no idea how that evolves in linnies. What I know is that with my linnies, all start with the greywing cuddling the cobalt. Then the cobalt grabs the greywing foot and they coppulate side by side. However, most of the time, the greywing escape before the cobalt is able to perform the coppulation. Does that hints any clue?

 

[Charlie]

Hi,

Here goes some pictures of the cobalt. In the process to capture him to take the pictures I could have a better look in his leg band (which I did not remember he had ) and found out he was born at 2018.








Some pictures are poor because Charlie would not stop moving. That´s also the reason he looks a mess with unaligned feathers

So in the light of the new info, at least the cobalt is just 3 years old. However, it is the greywing turquoise that avoids sexual contact....

I have a suspicious the cobalt is also a SF greywing...

Thanks

 

[Eddie's Aviary]

That is a sf gw male. So, since both of the birds are turquoise series, and greywing.... you can't pair them for breeding. I would take down the nestbox, dna sex the df gw looking one, and if a hen... cage her alone, with another older hen, or rehome her. Looks like she has had a tough life (based on the long term infection she had to her nare) and being harassed by a male she can't ethically raise young with will be tough on everyone involved. If you are interested in raising young, there are some pinned articles about what to look for when purchasing breeding "stock" you may find helpful. Thank you for sharing, this was a fun discussion. I appreciate you caring about doing the right thing. Let us know how it turns out!

 

[Charlie]

Thank you very much! I wonder how could you identify by the pictures that the cobalt is a male, any tips?

Sure I won´t pair two greywings for breeding purposes, the nestbox was removed 3 weeks ago and will not be reintroduced. Too bad it is hard to find linnies here, I guess raising youngs will not be something I could start anytime soon.

For now the sexual interest between them reduced quite considerably. As they make each other company I will keep them together, I have no hope for rehoming as few people know about the linnies here in Rio and even less people is willing to take care of them. These two were almost given to me by the previous owner as he did not want them.

Thank you for your time and sharing your knowledge.

Cheers

 

[LinnieGirl]

Charlie, all female greywings look very light like your hen. df greywing males also look that light. But sf greywing males are darker than your hen but lighter than a non greywing bird. They also have grey coloring where normally black would be on the shoulder spots, the body spots, and the bars and tail. Sf gw males are easy to spot, but the df looking ones could be male or female so have to dna those.