My Two Cockatoo Girls Are Courting

[jollysue]

Quite some time back, last spring maybe, I got two tiny little cockatoo ladies to add to my cockatoo pair, The Gent and The Lady. I have a girl at the lfs that is very proficient at sexing fish. She has a gift. She wasn't there that day so one of the fellows followed my instructions, and we picked out two gals--tiny, teeny gals.

A few weeks back my lovely cockatoo boy (The Gent) succumbed with almost all my bottom fish to a med treatment for the neons. I had thought The Gent was still there but with his color washed out for some time until I found him nearly dead in a cave and then dead the next day. Then I desided that the washed out one was just one of the 3 females.

I was looking today and the tail was more colorful on that girl (Light Girl) than I had remembered. Next I looked and she was swishing her tail at Dark Girl, the littlest gal (about an 1-1/2"), and playing with her. I thought that is strange. Hmm? I always wondered why she was growing so fast compared to Dark Girl.

Next I see a bright yellow Dark Girl chasing The Lady off from my colorful Light Girl with the peacock tail!

So now I have a colony again. He's not as pretty as The Gent, but he's formidable. Maybe he will get more colorful as the tank gets healthier.

There is also a cockatoo male from Dave Soares waiting in a cory tank for the 100 usg tank to resolve it's problems. So I think two gals won't be enough for two boys and in time I will get another gal or two from David or my lfs.

I am pleased that the little "girl" (it's the one I called Light Girl) stepped up to the plate. I'm sure the other girls are happy too.

 

[glolite]

Congrats on having another male after all. Have you managed to breed cockatoos yet?

 

[jollysue]

I have not tried to breed the cockatoos specifically. Before the treatment that killed The Gent, he was quite the fellow with the girls, and they had all spent a day in seclusion with him. None of those trysts had results that I became aware of. They are still young. In addition to that trio and the boy in seclusion in the cory tank, there is an Orange Flash with three ladies and an agassazi red tail with two ladies in another tank for miniature species. They also are young, and I'm not sure those boys have even been successful in their courtships. although the oldest Orange Flash girl has been staying very close to home (under a driftwood log), only darting out for black worm bites, then back under.

She could be nesting, I suppose.