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IN THE WILD

The wild pacific parrotlet is a diminutive 5” long and is primarily green throughout the body.  The male has a blue eye stripe, blue on the wing coverts and a cobalt blue rump.  The female (of the nominate race) doesn’t have these blue markings.  There is a sub-species called the “Lucidia”, the females of this sub-species do have a faint blue eye stripe and blue on the rump but no blue in the wings.  The Pacific Parrotlets home range is from northwest Peru, Trujillo & Libertad, north along the Pacific side of the Andes to Rio Chone, and western Ecuador.  They live in small flocks of 4-10 birds on the open land areas and along the edges of the wooded areas.

IN CAPTIVITY

The first recorded breeding of the pacific parrotlet was in 1938.  By the early 1960’s they were beginning to breed them in Europe.  Since that time new mutations have appeared, including blues, fallows, albinos and lutinos.  Average life span for pacific parrotlet  is 12-15 years.

AS A PET

Pacific parrotlets are rapidly becoming one of the more popular of the parrot-type birds that are available today, due to their wonderful clown like personality and their quiet voice.   Hand-fed babies make wonderful and affectionate pets, that have the ability to talk and they love to play and do tricks.  They can also be a handful at times due to their natural stubbornness.  They must be taught from a very early age (while they are still being hand-fed) what their limits are and this must be reinforced when they go into their new home.

CAGING

A minimum size cage for one pacific parrotlet is 19”*11”*19” high.  This gives the pacific parrotlet plenty of room to move around with toys and dishes in the cage.  The perches in the cage should be ½” diameter to spread his weight evenly on the perch. If the perch is too small it can cause sores on the bottom of the feet.  The bar spacing of a cage for a pacific parrotlet should be no more than ½”, any wider and they can get their heads through the wire.

DIET

Pacific parrotlets do best on a seed mix that is at least 1/2 “canary” seed (that’s the name of the grain) and contains a variety of other small grains, such as Feathered Friends Cockatiel Mix.  Quite a few “commercial” mixes use filler seeds such as red millet, which has no nutritional value.  The same “commercial” mixes use food colouring on some of the seeds as well as pellets.  Pacific parrotlets colour vision is remarkable and they will usually ignore these coloured seeds.  Thus you end up paying for scatter on the bottom of the cage.  Sunflower seeds can be fed as a treat, too many in the diet can lead to liver problems.

Pacific parrotlets require gravel in their diet to grind up the seed in the gizzard.  Pacific parrotlets also require vitamin supplements, Feathered Friends Aqua-Vite and mineral supplements, such as Complete Mineral Supplement, as a seed diet alone is deficient in both.

      Pacific parrotlets enjoy having “treats” in their diet.  A treat is any food that is not a staple and it should be fed to them accordingly.  Spray millet is a favorite of all pacific parrotlets.  There are many good treat mixes, such as Feathered Friend Budgie/Cockatiel Treat Mix.  Most pacific parrotlets will also eat fruits and vegetables, such as broccoli, kale, spinach, carrot tops, dandelion, chickweed, apple, pear, melons, bananas, persimmons, etc.  Lettuce should be avoided, as it is mostly water.  Always feed fruits and vegetables in small amounts and if you hang them in the cage, the pacific parrotlet is more likely to try it.