Search the Community

Hi guys. I actually posted these in my topic on the building of my aviary, but though I should post here too, to get it in the right department. While the weather has been terrible, and Ive not been able to work on the aviary, I have been working in the garage on my breeding cages. So I just thought I'd post up what I have done, in case anyone may like to use an idea I had in the building of mine, share ideas and all that. So this is what I posted in the other thread: Since the other day I have done a bit more work. Once the first one is together, the next ones tend to go together a whole lot quicker.

Hi All, I was just reading back over my breeding diary for 2009! What a long time ago that was! Since then I think I have only bred once. Tragically, one of the two chicks that were hatched died unexpectedly and the other escaped from her cage - she was too smart for her own good I say. Anyway, I'm back into it again. For good hopefully. The happy couple are: Aussie DSC_3160.jpeg and Able DSC_3141.jpeg And the beginning of their family: DSC_3159.jpeg Looking forward to them hatching. (Due date...April 5th) Have a good one!

I had setup my breeding pair about 2 weeks ago and everything was looking fine they started mating in 3 day's and the female spends most of the time in the nest box. but recently i have noticed that the female is plucking her vent feathers, she isnt showing any signs of egg binding and is spending 2/3 of the day in the nestbox her poop is huge just like usual and isnt watery or abnormal , she doesnt sit on the floor I have breed budgies before and know what im doing i just find this strange because my last breeding pair layed fertile egg's 5 day's after mating

Alright, well I guess you can guess why I'm here. I'm back in the budgie world and I want to know what my birds are and you lovely people are the ones to help me. Oh, I can make some guesses but I've forgotten most of what I used to know and I'm too lazy to go back and research it from the start so I've come to you guys. Thanks! 1) 2) 3) 4) I'm dreadfully sorry about the horrible pictures.... They will improve I promise!

Well, most of this was said in the descriptive titles. Two hens setting at once. One I need to let rest, but I like her genetics. Anyone ever successfully switch eggs on a hen?

I have two budgies around 14 months old having their first clutch. Dad had previously bonded with another non-breeding hen in the aviary. When I introduced him to mum in the breeding cage, they literally mated within a few minutes - an amazingly short courtship that I had never previously seen. They were very kissy and within two weeks they had eggs and now have 4 beautiful babies. The oldest baby who is now five weeks has been coming out of the box for the last five days. Dad has also taken a shine to this baby and has made several unsuccessful attempts to mate with the baby when the baby has asked for food. Whilst this is disturbing, I have seen this before and decided that if it gets worse, I will remove the baby who now seems to generally be able to feed itself. The problem is mum and dad's relationship. Over the last week or so they have become quite aggressive to each other. Dad often flies at mum as if to attack and mum is frequently seen pecking him. If I put something in the cage like celery, they fight over it. Gone also are the lovey-dovey kissing sessions. As the babies have got older mum seems to spend a great amount of time out of the box whereas normally a mum would be thinking of starting another clutch. Some of this is because she almost has to sneak into the box sometimes to get in as dad will often fly at her. She spends much time on a seed feeder in the corner furtherest away from the box. Absent mum or agrressive/over protective dad?? Today I arrived home to find mum with a bloodied closed eye with blood around the eye in a 1cm diameter. I instantly removed her to a separate cage to assess and protect her. Luckily her eye is okay as initially I thought it may have been pecked out. Later I added the oldest chick to her cage that dad has recently been hassling. This was to stop dad from hassling the baby and also give mum company. In addition as I do not know what has occurred I can only assume dad has attacked mum. Perhaps dad got too amorous with baby and mum stepped in?? So initially the plan was to let dad raise the babies, but the niggling thought was what if dad was the problem and mum stepped in. I suspect the two youngest babies may also be female. Will he be trouble for them? I also was not sure if he was actually feeding the younger ones so I placed them temporarily on the bottom of the cage to see if he was feeding anyone - to no avail. One thing though when I went to return them to the box he flew down on top of them as if to protect them. Having returned the babies to the box, I brought mum back to observe the behaviour. At this stage they had been separated 6 hours. Instantly he flew at her and tried to block her from returning to the nesting box. Why would he be so protective of the box? Does he think she is a problem or is he attempting to protect his harem? I have never seen such aggression between parents - only female budgies. Maybe one has a mental illness? I then decided to take him out and put him in the separate cage with the oldest baby. Instantly he attempted to mate with the baby, so I have returned the baby to the nesting cage (she still sleeps overnight in the box even though she can eat and drink for herself.) So the plan is to make sure mum is feeding the babies by midday tomorrow. If so, I will return dad to the aviary. If not, I will have to swap mum and dad again and remove the oldest baby to a separate cage with mum. Of the other three babies, two may be in fact cracking seed themselves -not sure about drinking. But the youngest was a runt and five days younger than the closest sibling, so he still has quite a way to go and will need feeding. Continuous handfeeding is not really an option though. So has anyone experienced this behaviour before between parents? What would/did you do? Any comments/suggestions will be appreciated. I let you know what happens if for nothing else to share the experience with others.

Hi, we had a dad budgie escape from a breeding cage 3 days ago(30 aug). Mum is sitting on 6 eggs due to hatch early September and rarely leaves box. I am worried that she will not be able to raise the 6 babies by herself and hand feeding is not an option. This is her second clutch - first clutch of 2.infertile and 3 dead babies in eggs and she started laying the second clutch ( all appear fertile this time) before I had removed the first so she has been sitting contiuously on eggs for over 40 days. My options are:- 1) do nothing and hope she can manage by herself. 2) introduce another male in the hope that he will court her over the next few days and then assist with baby feeding once babies have hatched. Threat - he may hurt them? 3) Let another current dad assist her. She is in a double breeding cage. I could remove the centre partition and hope that the other brilliant dad will look after both clutches. The other clutch has 1 egg left and 6 babies and is the second clutch for that pair. The father is a brilliant dad who feeds and sits on eggs and babies. 4) transfer all or some of the eggs to the other pair. I was considering transferring one or two eggs to the other clutch while there is still an egg left in the aecond clutch. This could preserve at least some of the babies from our lost dad and reduce the load on the single mum. I guess there is a chance that the other mum could reject the eggs - even smash them.. If I was to transfer all the eggs over time, i worry that a possible clutch of 13 may be too much for my brilliant parents. Any experience or advice would be highly appreciated. Thanks

My female budgie, Laila, laid her first ever egg on 25 May and went on to lay 7 eggs. Two of them were infertile and 5 hatched. The last of the 5 came out of the nest box abour 4 days ago and so we took off the nest box. Today Laila laid an egg in the cage. We attached the nest box back and placed the egg in there, which Laila burried in the wood shavings. We placed it on top again and she burried it again. Is it normal for a budgie to lay eggs so soon? I really do not want to have any more budgies in my house (already there are 7 now), but I could give them away if they do hatch. Laila is a small bird and doesn't fly much - she can only fly downwards, but not upwards. She is a very active budgie and keeps herself occupied with the toys, but I am worried what impact it would have on her health to be having more babies within such a short time. Would she go on repeating this egg laying process all the time? How can this be stopped? Is it okay if we don't attach the nest box, in which case I guess she won't incubate the eggs and they won't hatch? Thanks for your suggestions and advice.

? ? Want to breed the pied budgies when older but unsure of the yellow and green one's gender - just making sure. ? ?

Hi all, I have a pair of budgies and they look healthy. Two months back the hen laid 4 eggs(irregular sequence, two eggs in two days and for a week it didn't lay and eggs and then laid two eggs in three days). None of them hatched and I removed the eggs after 25 days due of the last egg. After one month from that, now it has laid 8 eggs, each in two days(from April 04 to April 18). They mated before laying each egg. The hen always incubating the eggs from day 1. Now that it has past 21 days for the first egg and it didn't hatch yet. It makes me worry. At least two eggs should have been hatched by this time but none hatched. I really feel bad for my budgies. I didn't egg candled since I didn't want to disturb my budgies. I had placed some cuttle bones at the time of laying too. Any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks, Manoj

i have a female budgie who until recently was pretty normal. she started molting and her and my male bred. i dont think it was successful since she never laid an egg but now she is laying completely flat on her belly for most of the day. she has a very faint yellow staining above her cere. tail bobbing and seems to be having difficulty flying. I seperated her from the male in fear of her being sick and spreading it to him. im worried about her but she seems to eat and drink like normal. i know they miss each other as i put the cages close enough they can chirp at each other and not be too lonely. the male has now started humping EVERYTHING in the cage. could the female just be egg bound? if so what should i do? im use to Big parrots not small budgies but i love my birds and want to help them. am i over reacting and shes just ready for round two of the male or am i justified in thinking she may be sick? please help

Hi! I'm new to this forum and also very new to breeding budgies so I'm going to be asking a lot of questions on here. I thought I'd start with the most severe problem so far. How do I clean out the best box? The first baby is around 3 weeks now and the youngest is around 1or so and the best box has an odd smell around it. I'm not sure if that's normal or not but I'm just guessing it's not. I really want to clean it out but last time I tried the parents freaked out and started flying around everywhere and the babies started screaming. After that for a few minutes the hen seemed a little nervous about going into the best box but I'm not sure. Is there any way to clean it so the parents and the babies don't get scared? If not is it okay if they are scared? Will the parents stop caring for them if I clean it? Any help would be very much appreciated.

Hi how many budgies can I fit in my new cage. I am currently breeding two budgies but I just got in a new double cage, it has 4 doors for food/water, 2 doors for access to the budgies and a divider down the middle for separation (note I also have many spare toys). The dimensions of the whole cage are 85cm x 50 x 50, how many budgies can I put in there? p.s. I also hand tame all my birds before breeding which means I can give them a couple hours outside the cage daily. thanks for any advise you could leave me with.

Hi guys, this afternoon i noticed my 21 day old budgie's feathers ( just a few) on the bottom of the nest box. In the last few days the hen has been spending quite a bit more time in the nest box. i saw her trying to pull out her baby's feathers earlier this afternoon, the baby was screeching loudly, so i immediately looked it up on the internet. the website recommended removing the hen. I have done this to prevent her from attacking her chick and i am hoping the cock will pick up on looking after the baby as the website said he would. could i please have some advice asap? what do i do? have i done the right thing? how can i make sure the male is feeding his baby?

Hi all, I am new to the hobby. We have a pair of budgies that we originally thought were both female. One is an albino and the second one is a pure yellow DEC. We got them from a local pet store some months back and the attendant then told us that they were both females when asked, just to confirm. One morning, before continuing my progress of trying to tame them, I saw the yellow one mounting our albino. I was convinced he was female because he has pink cere as I thought males had blue, so I wasn't sure anymore. We really weren't looking to breed them, and taming them is our top priority- and after reading more about budgie colors and behavior, I learned that he is a DEC and DEC males have pink ceres even in maturity. I bought a nest box for them after observing their behavior, just in case, as I read that it wouldn't be ideal for the hen to lay eggs without a nest box (if it turns out that our DEC is male). A few days later, our Albino went in the nest box and started spending more of her time there. And days later I could hear a new chick chriping! Confirms my suspicion that our DEC really wasn't female, but a mature male. Fascinating stuff! I didn't check the nest box throughout the whole nesting and hatching process as to not disturb the new parents, and considering they not fully tamed yet. I just go to them to give them the greens and seeds they need and clean their feeding bowls and water bowls. But after 7 days (turned to two weeks) I could only hear one chick. When the momma bird was hanging out of the nest box more, I knew the chick was growing so I gradually resumed staying there for longer periods of time trying to tame them again (and somehow get them used to me again to eventually check their nest box). But before I could check the box, what I saw peeking out of the entrance was a baby Lutino! A bright yellow chick with red eyes. I really didn't expect a Lutino, considering only one egg hatched. Really happy! The chick is about 30 days old now as I am typing this, and have already peeked on the nest box. They had two other eggs. I removed them gradually one by one, in different weeks. I passed a flashlight into these two eggs and they weren't really bound to hatch from the get-go, no embryos. It's okay though! Now I have some questions, I read that an average budgie lays 4-6 eggs but mine only laid three, and only one hatched– despite being fed greens and quality seed mixes. Cuttlebone and mineral blocks were always provided. Is this because they are first-time parents? Also, is it safe to say that our new Lutino chick is a split between DEC and albino? Meaning carrying both green base and hidden blue(from her albino mother- I read that albinos are blue base) in her genes. (I'm assuming she's female for now as I read that most inos are female) Thank you!

I know that back a few years ago there was a discussion about violets. Things have changed since then. I had posted some time back about breeding. I have a visual violet and I was so excited. He was going to be my foundation Stud. Well he was thinking different. I just was not interested in making babies. NO WAY JOSE! So I had to look at different avenues. So with the new season, I had limited stock. I have 6 couples paired up for the season. Cage 1 is a Violet Cobalt Male Spangle with a sky blue cinnamon. Cage 2 is Violet Sky Blue Violet cobalt Male with with a Dark Green Violet Hen. Cage 3 is Violet Grey Opaline Male with a Lutino Female who carries violet. I got a very nice Violet Mauve Spangle from her. Cage 4 is a Mauve and he is paired with a Violet Cobalt Hen. Cage 5 is an Olive Spangle Male (he was the father of the Violet Mauve Spangle and he is paired with a Violet Cobalt Hen. Last is Cage 6 a Violet Sky Blue Dom Pied with a Sky Blue Recessive Pied. So all of these pairs at least one of the parent has the Violet Gene. I know they didnt want to talk about adding Grey and Green, but I needed the Violet gene. That is my plan and I will be adding images as time goes on. Couple 6 is seriously getting down to business. I am expecting eggs by next week. If you are in the same situation as I am, please feel free to talk about. Lets add pics as they come. Thanks

Hi, I recently picked up a couple of baby Budgies, about 10 weeks old now. They're enjoying flying around the living room and perching on the light fixtures. I got them for two reasons; to teach my 9 and 10 year old boys a little responsibly, and so I'd have a little daytime company while I'm off work. As I'm expetting to be housebound for awhile I've decided to look into breeding. I'm looking at getting a breeding pair to start with, and some second hand cages and breeding boxes. Is there anything specific I'd need to avoid? With the cage and boxes I'd like to make sure they're clean. What's the best way to rid them of any trace of previous tenants? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Cheers, Steve

Hi, I am a new breeder. I am cabinet breeding and have four pairs set up. All with everything they need, cuttlebone, mineral blocks, calcium blocks, veggies everyday, constant supply of food etc... My first clutch was laid and on the due date the first baby hatched (another one due today). After two days though this baby died. I'm unsure why, I know these things happen, nature and all but I really want to prevent any future "preventable" deaths. I found the baby this morning, it had a completely empty crop :/ The parents are first timers, but both are over a year old. I have hand rearing stuff in case, but I was hoping the parents would do a good job, any advice? So far my breeding set up looks great and it is all from the research I had done prior, I spent hours going over every topic of this forum and the FAQs as well, but maybe there is some information I am missing? Thank you

I have an aviary with lots of breeding boxes. One of my females has found a mate and started laying eggs. Today she was due to lay her third. I checked the nest box but only saw one - then I noticed that there were two on the floor of the aviary. One cracked and broken from the drop and the other in tact which I put back in the box. Why are the eggs being thrown out of the box? I noticed that there is another female in the aviary who has been showing a lot of interest in the same next box. She hasnt got a mate but she does go in and out of the next box when the laying hen is not in there. Could she be throwing the eggs out? I have now separated the laying hen and her mate into a breeding cage. She seems content in the nest box and hasnt left the eggs since I brought her in. Does anyone have any advice or tips for me please?

This may seem like a silly question, but it has been doing my head in and I'd appreciate some advise and thoughts please. I have a large aviary that I have 4 budgies in. They have had one lot of bubs without any incidents. I have some more budgies in a few large cages, but they are just enjoying life and not breeding. I do not want to colony breed as I don't wish to invite trouble with hens killing and fighting. I have a bit of trouble getting my head around keeping pairs in flight/breeding cages as I like all my birds like them to have heaps of room but I can't fit 30 aviaries on my property with only 2 birds in each lol. Nor do I want my aviay going to waste because all pairs are breeding in flight cages/breeding boxes. I guess my question is, do breeders who are breeding in the flight/breeding cages for two sittings then return them back to the aviary for a rest. Once breeding season starts do I catch them all and return them to the breeding cages. Does this stress them out with all the shifting about? What do other breeders do? Do you leave them in the flight cages all the time but take off nesting boxes after 2 rounds. Do I sell the aviary and have them permately in the flight cages/ breeding cages. Any help and tips would be greatly apreciated.

Hi! I’m new to the forum I have a bonded pair of female budgies and a bonded pair of male budgies. They live in the same cage and so far have refused to accept each other. They’re very closely bonded to each other and will actually bicker between the two groups. I often find the two males on one side of the cage and the two females on the other. I want to start a small, casual breeding program with my pet budgies as an academic project, but I don’t know how to encourage two of them to pair up. Is there a way or should I just look into getting an already bonded pair of male female budgies? Both males are young so it would take several months anyways for them to be ready to breed. I have a large 64x18 inch cage for all 4 of them and have room for a smaller breeding cage that I can either stack on top of the big one or put on the shelf next to it. How many cages do you typically need for a small program? I’m aiming to maximize safety and health, as these are my personal pet budgies. I’m not looking to make a profit, and would likely only get one clutch a year. It also might be a good idea to get a professionally bred male female pair because my older female budgie has some kind of respiratory problem and came from a pet store, though my younger female seems pretty healthy. Thank you for any and all advice! I’m hoping in a few months I can end up with a healthy clutch of chicks and a healthy, happy pair of parents.

Please help me identify the mutation of my beautiful, but unusual looking baby budgie. His parents are gorgeous. My male is a blue and yellow dark-eyed clearflight and my female is a gray factor, but that's all I know about her mutation. I'm providing pictures of both Mom and Dad and baby. I know it's difficult to tell in the picture, but baby is a soft, baby yellow, with dark gray spots on his back and his abdomen is slate blue (dark blue grey). He's stunning. Please help me identify his mutation, as he's super unusual and I've never seen another budgie that looks like him before. Thank you so much.🙂