Breeding of the Goldie’s Lorikeet

Breeding

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In comparison with other groups of parrots, lories are not commonly kept species. In 2001, the Czech loribreeders club was established but a few years ago it became just a passive organization and therefore it was dismissed. I started with lories in 2007 – at the time when club was still existing. I don’t say that everything was perfect but at least people with the same hobby could regularly meet at one place and share their experience.

Today, everybody cares only about birds of his own and sometimes calls to another breeder when needs to sell or buy something. When I was trying to restore our lori club in 2012 and 2013 I made a list of all Czech loribreeders. I found out that there are over 20 people in our country who keep these parrots. Also breeders with one or two pairs were included. There are about ten of bigger lori breeders here.

It’s no use crying over spilt milk. The only way how to change the situation and convince some new people to keep these beautiful birds is to popularize their breeding. Therefore I decided to describe one smaller species – Goldie’s Lorikeet (Psitteuteles goldiei).

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Distribution and habitat

It is found on New Guinea along the central mountain range from West Irian to the extreme East of the island. Elevation ranges from sea level to 2750m asl. Similarly to Josephine’s Lorikeet (Charmosyna josefinae), Stella Lorikeet (Charmosyna papou) or Whiskered Lorikeet (Oreopsittacus arfaki), this species occurs at higher elevations where temperature falls to 14°C in some part of the year.

However, former species are found in mountains almost exclusively while the Goldie’s inhabits both – lowlands and highlands. In comparison with other lories and lorikeets of New Guinea, its habitat is not any specific. According to IUCN data, Goldie’s is classified as „least concern“ species.

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Breeding

Facility

I kept this species in two types of cages. The inside cages have dimensions 1 x 1 x 1m. The other type includes inside walk in aviaries with length of two meters and width 0,8m with outside flights one meter long. Because of the large window, birds could fly over three meters in total. Most of us wouldn’t consider this species to be a good flyer however when you put them to a larger aviary you will find out the opposite. On the other hand, I have to admit that my Goldie’s spend most of time in the inner part and don’t go outside often. So despite their flying skills they rather climb on branches. In this respect, they don’t differ from other lories and lorikeets.

It’s necessary to heat the facilty in case we live in temperate climate. In my aviaries temperature doesn’t fall bellow 15°C. Part of my collection is placed in inside cages during the winter, the rest in combined aviaries with inner and outside part. I have also outside aviaries with no heating where the birds from inside cages are placed at the end of spring when temperature occurs nearly 10°C.

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Goldie’s lorikeets in Loro Parque (c) Lubomir Tomiska

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I consider the Goldie’s Lorikeet to be hardy in comparison with other lorikeet species of the same size. On the other hand, we should realize that it’s still a very small animal. Therefore it has larger surface in relation to its volume than larger animals. And so it costs them more energy to thermoregulate the body temperature.

Most of breeders keep this species in small cages, sometimes also in an appartement. There is nothing wrong with that if the cage is at least one meter long. The Goldie’s Lorikeet is not a noisy parrot and because of its small size it doesn’t require such maintenance like other larger species. So why we can’t put a cage to our facility and try to start breeding of lories with this small but beautiful parrot?

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READ THE NEXT PART OF THIS ARTICLE ON THE NEXT MONDAY!

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author: Lubomir Tomiska

Title photo: A pair of Goldie’s Lorikeet in Berlin ZOO. (c) Lubomir Tomiska

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