Pin-Tailed Parrot Finch

PIN-TAILED PARROT FINCH
ERYTHRURA PRASINA

© H.J de Vos

CLASSIFICATION
The pin-tailed parrot finch, Erythrura prasina prasina exists in two different colour forms. The common red abdomen and a rarer yellow abdomen. The yellow abdomen is a naturally ocuring mutation.

There also exists a sub species, Erythrura prasina coelica, which has a red abdomen. The greatest difference from E. prasina prasina is its remarkable cobalt-blue chest.

Red abdomen-male © D.Noirjean

Red abdomen-female © D.Noirjean

NATIVE HABITAT
Erythrura prasina prasina
Their natural range is Thailand, Java and Sumatra, Malaysia, Vietnam, West Laos and Cambodia.
This was originally a species found at the edges of the forest and in bamboo fields, where their diet consisted mainly of the seeds of grasses and bamboo.
More recently they have spread to rice plantations where they cause a great deal of crop damage.

Erythrura prasina coelica
This sub family lives in the identical habitat to E. prasina prasina but only occurs locally in Borneo.

DESCRIPTION
The male is green on the back and has a length of 15 cm.
The head and throat are cobalt-blue with a red chest, abdomen and rump.
On the chest they have an ochre-coloured stroke between the blue of the throat and the red of the belly.
As the name of the bird suggests, the tail is pin-tailed. The beak is black.

The female is less accentuated in colour and lacks the blue on the throat and head, although she often has a red spot on the breast. Her tail is also shorter.

AVICULTURAL NOTES
The pin-tailed parrot finch is one of the species which has proved difficult to breed.
Nevertheless some breeders succees in producing young pintails every year. If you start breeding with imported birds they must be acclimated to their new environment first. Acclimatisation should be started with a minimum temperature of 25° Celsius, but after some time this can be reduced to 20°C.

Try to use foster parents, such as Bengalese. The young pintails, F1, will raise their own young more easily.

Parent rearing successes usually occur in an aviary well planted with shrubs. These aerial acrobats construct their nest in all kinds of places. It is advisable to attach nests at different heights. As for nesting material, they prefer dry grasses, coconut fibre, sisal and moss.

Mostly all females start egg laying at the same time. The 3 to 6 eggs are incubated for 14 days. The young leave the nest very soon, usually between the 18th and the 21st day. Sometimes they are not yet fully feathered. At the age of 6 weeks they are independent and reach sexually maturity at 6-7 months.

Colony breeding is no problem. The males are not aggressive towards each other. In nature they live in groups and are found nesting short distances apart. There are practically no fights although they will threaten each other and short pursuits will follow. After a while the roles are reversed and the earlier pursued is now doing the threatening himself.

Make sure the birds have somewhere to hide the moment the bird room is entered. This is their natural behaviour. Once you are out of sight they will reappear immediately.

As said before Bengalese can take over the parent's work but take into consideration young pintails have different behaviour to other parrot finches. Namely, they are very noisy, so its recommended to allow Bengalese to feed only three young per nest.

Also keep in mind, as previously written, babies leave the nest very soon, so losses can occur. Foster parents that have been very attentive in feeding the chicks in the nest do sometimes forget the other ones on the cage bottom.

Pin-tailed parrot finches practically never come on the ground so their food, water and bath water should be placed as high as possible.

They require a varied diet and should have at their disposal different grass seeds, hulled oats, animal protein, germinated grain, a regular supply of green leaves and a little fruit.

The amateur must be aware that the overnight temperature must not fall below 25°C.
Pintails usually only keep their young warm during the first few nights, without supplementary heating the young will certainly die.

MUTATIONS

Yellow abdomen
The yellow abdomen is unique to Erythrura prasina prasina. Heredity is autosomal (non sex-linked) recessive.

Seagreen
Here we have some pictures of some young seagreen pintails.
Heredity is not known for the moment.

Pied
In the meantime a pied pintail is born.
The parents of this bird are both imported green birds.
At the moment no breeding success has been achieved.