Not one, or two, but three Troupial chicks!

Pics are taken at night

Out of the nest

First Troupial chick out of the nest today (approx. 17 days after hatched)

Two chicks of Venezuela Troupial in the nest

It's about 12 days after hatched.

Egg of Troupial pair hatched!

17 days later since the last post, today I found one egg hatched from the Troupial (Icterus icterus) pair.  So excited!

Incubation of Venezuela Troupial

Counting to the day the eggs hatch!

Troupial (Icterus icterus) female starts to incubate

I don't know exact when the female starts to incubate her eggs, but I began to notice on last Sunday 06/19/2011.  I have no idea how many eggs in the nest and whether the eggs will hatch or not, but this is a huge step toward my goal of breeding Venezuela Troupial sp.  According to all the information i can gather from internet, books, etc.. Female troupial will incubate her eggs for about 15-16 days, and fledge in 22-23 days.

Possible courtship of Troupial pair (Icterus icterus)???

Troupial (Icterus icterus) pairs begin to build nest

I have the pair of Troupial (Icterus icterus) since last summer and up until now, they still shy when I come near their aviary.  Few days ago, I noticed that both the male and female start to tear off bit and pieces of leaves and hold in their beaks pieces of small branches, feathers, etc.  so I put some long grasses, bit of vine, small branches, coconut fibers, dried bamboo leaves, etc.  Hopefully after they finish building the nest, they will lay some eggs.  I'm so excited!

The female with pink band on top of the nest. The pair below with the male in blue band

New breeding project: Troupial - Icterus icterus

Little over a month ago, I acquired a female Troupial.  After little over a week of letting the pair see each other from separate cage, I let them live together in a small aviary (4ft x 2ft x 6ft) for now and plan to build a similar white-rumped shama size aviary for them at the end of this year.  They live in harmony so far but do not act like a bond pair.  Male and female are never stay close together.  The male is dominant and sometimes attempt to bite the female when she comes near to him.  They love crickets, mealworms, superworms, banana, papaya, and anything that is sweet, soft, and orange/red color.
There is not much information on breeding this specie beside some basic information that I can find on internet:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troupial

Male is on the left, Female is on the right.

Troupial pics

Few days has pass, he eats mostly insects (loves mealworms) and few fruits.  Has not eat much pellets at all.  He also loves to drink nectar water that made for Oriole (similar to Hummingbird nectar but instead of red color, it's orange color).  He calls a few note but it doesn't match with any sound that I hear from youtube or online.

 

 

Troupial - Icterus icterus

Troupial - Icterus icterus is a Venezuelan bird that belongs to "New World Orioles."  It has nice song and exhibits beautiful plumage color.  If you search on youtube, there are quite a few clips that hand tame troupial performs its song and dance.  Some can learn to whistle a song!  Compare to shama thrush's song, I guess Troupial didn't have lots of variety in a song but Troupial's song sounds is unique and more like flute like sound. 
I have eye on this bird for a while until now.  This is my newest addition to the flock, and I'm very excited to have this bird.  According to the owner, this Troupial is about a year old and dna test as a male.  He looks very healthy, jumping/flying around the aviary; however when I put him in the bamboo cage, I surprise that he is very calm and alert; still little nervous but not jumping around wildly.  Few hours after I left him alone in the bamboo cage, I offer him few roaches and he starts to eat right away but I have to stand back few feet away before he jumps down to eat.  After eating few insects, I be able to stick my camera right at the cage to take these two pictures below.  Because of the low light condition and I didn't want to turn the flash on that close to the cage, the color is not 100% accurate but pretty close to actual.  I'll take some more pics in daylight and update his progress as often as I could.