Sailorwolf

Sometimes the bars are kept after baby hood. The cere doesn't go blue before 3 - 6 months of age. So baby bars aren't a reliable way of telling a budgie's age. An 8 month old male, might just be okay for breeding.

okay first off. Go read my new topic, "does your budgie bite"in budgie behaviour. Secondly budgies are unlikely to mate with out nest boxes, unless of course they belong to Phoebe or Me Even if they do mate, they don't always lay eggs. This is what is happening with my budgies (not with Phoebe's though). But usually they never even think about it. I have a girl who for 4 years has always been arounds boys, no nest box and has never mated.

For those of you who followed my posts about Arkady my 7 month old (boy) and Isis my 10month old (girl), who decided that they couldn't wait until they were a year old before they wanted to practice baby making. Well things have only got more interesting. My other two budgies Izzy, 2 year old boy and Saffron 4 year old girl decided they wanted a try too. Now I have had Saffron and Izzy together for two years and i have never seen any sort of frolicking between them before. I was watching my budgies last night and talking to them, when Izzy was putting the moves on Saffron and suddenly Saffron did the "U" shape. I was genuinely surprised, because in all the four years that I have had her I have never seen her do this, ever and now at 4 she wants to start. It was quite funny as Izzy had no idea, whatsoever, what to do. He would start bopping her face and then she would do the "U" shape and he would put his foot on her back, but instead of climbing on he just continued to bop her face and feed her. (he has clipped wings maybe that stopped him, but he didn't even try to climb on) Then he would run off and she would chase him, because she wanted to mate. He had no idea and kept running away from her because he thought she was going to peck him (as she usually does). Saffron can't fly so she had to chase after him via the cage bars and as soon as she got anywhere close to him he would fly off. Naturally she got frustrated. All this time Arkady and Isis were watching their antics and decided to show them exactly how it was done (they are quite good at it now). And remember I have no nestboxes or anything in my cages. :mellow: There must be something in the water :ausb:

He is so cute. Love the hat. Arkady used to do that thing with the food dishes:

Yes , but the white on her bum, actually goes on her legs. She has white contour feathers there, not just down feathers.

I thought I would make this an actual topic as I have come across so many people who have this problem and no matter what they do they can't fix it. When your budgie bites you how do you react? If you don't react and don't do anything AT ALL and you have been doing this for as long as you have had him and he still bites, I may have a solution for you. You have to be careful though as it may work with some budgies and not for others, it may even encourage biting, but this solution worked for my budgie, who continuosly bit me even though I had been ignoring her bites for years and she is 4 years old too. okay what you do is, when they bite you, you don't pull away, instead you push into their bite. You push their beak (lightly so as not to hurt them). The budgie doesn't like this, because it means that they could fall and it is also very uncomfortable for them. It means for them that when they bite they get pushed back and so they learn not to do it and because you are pushing their beak while they are biting you they learn to associate the two actions together. This worked almost instantly (within 3 days) for my Saffron and nowadays she hardly bites at all. And when she does all I have to do is remind her and she stops. So I don't know if it works for all budgies (as I have only tested it on one budgieand ), it could even make their biting worse, but it worked for me and could be used as your last resort. Another member has tried this method and has had positive results

Careful about putting him back into his cage when he bites. Because he may bite you when he wants to go back in his cage, and thus you would be rewarding him for his behaviour. In fact if it is a real bad, search for the topic Nasty Boy and you will find another method of controlling biting. Actually I think I'll make that into a proper post.

Budgies (at the moment) can't have green heads

It is never the animal's fault, always the human's. Perhaps those people don't handrear them very well, or the people that take them don't handle them well.

She looks like such a cute little pudge without a tail

I don't know if you noticed, but in the second picture, the YF2 looks like it has some white around its legs and bum. Just thought I'd point that out.

Hi and welcome to the forum. I love the name When he bites you do not react to it, or he'll think it's a game, just pretend its not happening. Usuallu soft bites, like when he bites the kids if they don't hold their finger in the right position for hinm to hop on are actually just to help him climb. If you watch him climb around his cage, heill use his beak as a "third limb". Are you sure that when he chews his feet he isn't just preening them? Because budgies do this all the time. if it looks like he is doing it hard then it might pay to visit an avian vet, because he could have mites that could cause itching. Budgies naturally chew wood and things to keep their beaks from growing too long as the chewing grinds it down. My budgies have chewed their play gym quite a bit too. Yes I would say do what Bea said, rearrange his cage and cycle his toys around, so that he doesn't get territorial My budgies for some reason, like to pick their poos off of the perches and one of them once piled them all up in a corner This, like Bea said, is classic boy behaviour. They especially love to bop their toys and sing to them. This is what they would do to a female budgie if she was in the cage, a kind of courting behaviour. Even though my budgie has a girlfriend he still does it to his toys and my other boy flirts with his cage bars Yes my budgie loves to dive bomb me too. It's fun.... for them. If you only want them to step up when you call you only reward him when he does what you want. However because he wants to do it for fun rather than treats he'll keep doing it any way. One of the perks of budgies. I personally liove it when Arkady does this, because it means he is playing with me. Also seed bells are not good for budgies as they are saturated with honey which is high in sugar content. You are better off with buying a good quality seed mix and trying :(Laughing out loud): to give him fresh food.

I haven't got chicks yet. I'm planning on breeding in december. I'm just trying to find out as much about breeding as I can, before I do it. And I'm learning about handfeeding too, just incase I have to do that as well. Thanks for the advice guys!

I put my wheel in the other day and Arkady lept on top of it thinking that it was solid and he fell off.

Arkady is definately at least a yellowface type 2 as his yellow bleeds onto his chest making it green Here I will give you a few piccies of him: (Izzy is the normal blue) This is when he was younger before his adult moult:

When you feed the babies do you put them on their backs like the parents do? If so what is a good method?

How long did it take for your budgies to try it out?

What you could do is get one budgie first, tame that one up and then get another one and during tis quarintine time you can tame it up then. Or you could get two at once. Taming may take a little longer then though. Just a note. When you first get your budgies they won't eat or drink for the first couple of days, especially while you are around. Don't panic. they just won't eat if you are watching because to them you are a predator. read eTerri's site, it is very good for taming etc. Also after these first few days the budgie will go through a ëscape at any cost" stage where your budgie will try its hardest to escape. this may be frightening at first, but don't worry they will eventually settle down. Also it is best to start off by covering the top, back and sides of the cage witha blanket or sheet and remove it slowly over the course of a week. This just makes them feel a little safer. And when you first get the bird down handle it until about a day or two later, so that you can allow it to settle in first. (This is starting to turn into an essay :(Laughing out loud): ) With your perches fruit trees such as apple are good, poplar and eucalypt branches are great too. It is good to have perches of various sizes to prevent arthritus and bumble foot in your budgies' feet. A great cleaning agent for budgie stuff is vinegar. Just mi8x with water and it is awesome for cleaning poop and stuff. There I hope that helps

So what is Arkady then? He is the yellowface blue in my siggy. He is a lot greener looking lately too.

Not really, my budgies do it right in front of me and they don't care. They especially like to do it when I am studying too. Yes plucking does hurt as feathers have nerves attached to them at the base.These are both locomotor nerves, so birds can puff and spread their feathers and sensory nerves. Plus you can also rip the surrounding skin as bird skin is very thin. Just like pulling scales from reptiles hurts, pulling feathers hurts birds. Same applies to mammals (hair that is). Cutting feathers does not hurt.

Yes I know that clear flight is dominant and recessive pied is recessive, but when both of those mutations are present it results in a dark eyed clear as quoted by http://www.geocities.com/budgie-place/p_colors.html#darkeyed "Dark-Eyed Clear The dark-eyed clear is actually a combination of recessive pied and clearflight pied. When these two mutations are both present, the budgie is has no markings or color. It is either pure yellow (if it is a yellow-based budgie) or pure white (if it is a white-based budgie). The dark-eyed clear's dark eyes never lighten with age, hence the name."

He is 11 isn't he Phoebe

Not yet . But it has given me ideas. It needs pictures though!

That would probably be my Arkady then

I don't clip my budgies, generally, even for taming now. I think it is so much more rewarding when your budgie flies to you because it wants to be with you. I do however have a clipped budgie, whom I clipped, because he was quite cocky and not responding to training. Although now I wish I hadn't as I really want him to beable to fly. He is a good flier and is flying around with only 3 flight feathers, but he can only glide sort of. Two of my budgies can fly, one is clipped and the other just can't fly, don't know why? can glide, but not fly and she has full feathers too.