Abstract
The terms "lories" and "lorikeets" are used interchangeably by most authors since the term "lorikeet" merely means "little lory". For purposes of simplicity, only the term "lory" will be used in this paper.
The family Loriidae are among the most beautiful, interesting, active and affectionate of all psittacines. This family is extremely large and represents about 116 of total world psittacine population. The family contains about 75 species. Anatomically, the lories differ from other psittacines, by possessing a brush tipped tongue with which they "lap" nectar and liquids like cats. They are excellent breeders; frequently having one clutch after another, yearly. They will often breed freely in rather limited enclosures and, if hand raised, often make excellent "talkers". These are some of the positive points which make lories excellent avicultural candidates.
Most of the negative points are mainly focused around the fact that these birds are fruit and nectar eaters. Because of their diet, they have a very liquid excrement which is expelled in a very messy projectile manner. This one characteristic, above all others, makes them very poor candidates for "house pets". Making a well balanced nectar mix for lories is time consuming and rather expensive project. The proper hygenic care of their cages and nectar containers also requires a good deal of time and effort. However, with good outside aviary facilities, the positive points in favor of working with these exciting birds far outweigh the negative points.
Besides their unbelievable brilliant colors, the intelligence, inquisiveness and mischieviousness of the lories are among their most attractive qualities. Their activities very closely resembly baby kittens at play. One can constantly observe them making up games to play, either individually or in groups. At times they may be seen lying flat on their back juggling a twig or rock with their feet. Frequently two of them incessantly wrestle or do cartwheels around a branch. Their natural courtship activity of bobbing and wing flapping is an exciting display to behold and is somewhat different for each species. I have even seen five of them line up and march in a straight line, like little toy soldiers, playing "follow the leader". The Dusky Lories will frequently strut around in a circle, like two sparring boxers, with
outstretched wings; looking very much like turkey gobblers in mating display. This is mentioned only to point out that lories are constantly involved in innumerable humorous or interesting antics which make them probably the most interesting and desirable of all aviary psittacines to own.
It is stated by Tivert and by Forshaw that, in the wild state, the food of lories consists of flower nectar, pollen, blossoms and leaf buds. However, from my personal observations and necessary conclusions from parasites which these birds host, they of necessity must also consume a fairly large amount of insects or other parasitic intermediate host such as insect larvae, worms or even snails. This assumption is made on the fact that a great number of wild caught lories, coming into this country through quarantine, have intestines grossly infested with tape worms. The tape worm obligatorily requires an intermediate host such as insect, worm or snail to complete its life cycle. Some authorities have speculated that this infestation is brought about by the lories accidently consuming an occasional insect while feeding on flowers. I believe that this is an erroneous conclusion and that these birds actively go in search for insects while they have young in the nest, in spite of abundance of other food sources. I have seen parent lories digging through the dirt on the aviary floors for hours in apparent search for insects which they voraciously consume as they find them; as well as eating the roaches and flies that occasionally enter their cages.
In sexing the Loriidae, monomorphism between the sexes is the rule and dimorphism is the exception. The dimorphic exceptions which come to mind are the red phase of the Stella's and Josephine's Lori es in which one sex (reportedly, the female) has a yellow rump and the other sex has a red rump. However, in the melanistic (black) phase of the Stella's, both sexes have red rumps. Another genetic oddity in the melanistic phase of the Stella's is that, although the normal red pigment of the face and breast feathers are replaced with black feathers, the rump feathers of these melanistic birds retain their red pigment.
In the orange phase of the Dusky Lory, there is also a dimorphic difference in the sexes. The female has a silver-while rump and the male has a yellowish-rump.
However, this difference is more difficult to discern in the yellow phase of the Dusky for the rumps of the few I have seen are silver-white in the center and yellow-white in the periphery.
In the Edward's Lory, which is the yellow breasted variant of the Rainbow Lories, up until now, the dimorphic difference has been stated that the male may have a few orange feathers scattered among his yellow breast feathers whereas the female's breast feathers are all yellow. In my working with these birds, I have observed a much more striking difference between the sexes. I have found that the adult males have bright orange feathers on the lesser under wing-coverts, while the adult females have clear bright yellow lesser under wing-coverts. So far, the six young that I have raised this year have all had varying degrees of orange under their wings and I suspect that this color difference is only fully developed in adult plumage.
Many of the lories having an orange or horn colored beak in adulthood will have black beaks while immature. Therefore, any birds of these species having black coloration on their beaks are probably less than one year of age.
The "old wives' tale", still in popular belief among a great many bird breeders, is that, if two eggs are laid, the resulting nestmates will invariably be one male and one famale. This statement is definitely NOT true! This has been proven by recent laparoscopic studies. There will, however, nearly always be a difference in the size of the two nestmates. This difference, l believe, may well be attributable to hatching dates and the first bird getting more food. This difference in size will frequently equilibrate toward the end of the first year, if good diet has been provided for both birds.
It has been said that lories only lay two eggs per clutch. I know of one pair of mollucan red lories that laid four eggs in one clutch and all four eggs hatched.
A well balanced diet is probably the most important part of successful breeding of all birds; and this is certainly true of the lories. There are probably as many "nectar" mixes for lories as there are people who raise these birds. The lories require a very large glucose (sugar) supply to give them energy for their incessant activity. A high protein component of well balanced amino acids for cellular growth is essential. The amino acid, cystine, and its metabolic precurser, methionine, are very important for good healthy feather production.