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Feeding, housing and behaviour..
.There are two things that most Pionus keepers seem to agree on. Firstly that Pionus LOVE food and secondly that they do best when offered a high proportion of fruits, vegetables and pulses rather than dry seed-based diets.
Our Pionus will take Pumpkin seeds before most food and also love peas.
Our Blue-headed, currently raising 3 chicks, are comsuming nearly 6kg of food per week: 75% of this is fruit, vegetables and pulses.
Update: August 16th....... 3 Blue-headed chicks have fledged.Food consumption still high!
Plucking.
One problem that some pairs of Pionus are prone to is over-preening of the head and neck area.
One of our Dusky females removes a small patch of feathers from the rear of the head of her mate.
In some cases this can become quite extreme as displayed by the pair of Maximillians in the photo below. Generally speaking this does not affect the overall health of the birds, it is an outward sign of anxiety.
Housing.
We are firm believers that Parrots should have access to fresh air, sun, wind and rain. In colder areas it may be more difficult. Our Pionus are housed in suspended flights approximately 3m in length by 1.5x 1m and we would regard this as the minimum length. As Pionus are not hard chewers we use wooden frames. The flights are designed so that one end is enclosed on 3 sides to allow the birds to roost, feed and nest in a shady, draught-free and secluded situation. We use a mix of natural perches(Hazel) and un-treated timber.
The original wild-caught birds were particularly prone to respiratory diseases: as with all Parrots this can be greatly reduced by correct feeding( fresh food), hygiene and proper housing.
If you are housing pairs of Pionus in adjacent aviaries you may find that some pairs will resent neighbours of the same, or different species. Our aviaries are spaced so that the pairs cannot see each other.
Despite their generally gentle nature some species can become extremely aggressive during the breeding season.
Nesting.
In our experience Pionus do not enjoy intrusion into the nest box, however this will depend on the relationship between the keeper and the birds. One keeper I know will remove chicks from the nest, change the bedding, and replace the chicks without any problems.
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Our Diet....
We use a good quality commercial seed mix with very little sunflower.
It has dari, millets, buckwheat, safflower, oats and other small seeds.
Fresh foods:
We make a daily mix of the following, roughly equal amounts by volume of....
Chopped fruit and vegetables (Apple, orange, Celery).
De-frosted peas and sweetcorn.
Soaked and sprouted pulses ( Mung beans, Aduki beans, lentils, split peas, oats) .
Dried foods, moistened in water ( banana, berries, carrots, dates, beetroot, flaked peas).
During the breeding season we add to this mix eggfood and "Breedmax".
Each bird gets a halved Walnut in shell or a palm nut daily.
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