Hi all,

 

Firstly, I've just found this forum and this it is absolutly FAB! Thank you for a great place to ask my questions and tell my birdie stories.

 

Basically, I bought a blue **** and then 2 months later a green hen and put them together in a nice cage and have them as pets. I was told that this coming march they will be old enough to mate.

 

As it is now December and I would like to start preparing. Their current diet is seed and millet and a little veg once a week. They have a calcium block and a cuttle fish bone for all their calcium etc. They have grit on their cage floor but not in their food dispensers.

 

I have seen a nest box that will attach to their cage on ebay and am going to buy it. I am hoping they will get used to it on their cage by March and that it will encourage them a little. Will it?

 

Any advise you can give me will be greatly appreciated. Most breeding advice talks about putting two brids together but these two have been together for almost a year now. Will that make things easier or harder at all?

 

Thank you,

 

Chris

Welcome to the forums! I think they're great too. It's a little early to put the nest box up if you want to wait until March. It will not take them long to get used to it. I hope they are at least 18 months old when you breed them, I read somewhere their (pelvic) bones are not fully developed and fused until then, as well as being more emotionally ready and not as likely to become egg-bound. Most people here advise waiting at least until they are over a year old. I also do not advise giving them grit. Grit is for birds that do not hull their seeds and need a way to grind the outer part of the seed off to get at the nutritional inside.

 

My birds were together for 2-2 1/2 years before they began to breed. They remained tame during the breeding cycle, and are still that way a year later. I have all the babies too, and they all live very happily in my living room. If they are tame now, I don't see why they wouldn't remain so. A good seed/pellet mix with plenty of fresh veggies and some fruit will be good for them. Mine greatly increased their intake of fresh foods during the breeding cycle. I fed them veggies two or three times a day, as much as they would eat. The babies were raised on lots of fresh food, and ate it willingly as soon as they left the nest box. The cuttlebone and calcium blocks are good to have. They will probably eat more of them once they get into breeding condition. I would read up as much as you can on breeding budgies before you put the nest box in.

 

Hope I've helped some. If you have any more specific questions, please ask!

Hi Rainbow,

 

Thank you very much for your prompt reply. I think I will still make the purchase from ebay so that I have the nest box ready when it is time for breeding.

 

Also I will stop the grit on their cage floor. I have seen this advice mentioned in a few places. When I went to the vets for some scaley face mite drops the lady there told me I should use grit. BUT she was a general vet, not an avaian specialist.

 

Thank you once again. I will post some pics when I have some more time and let you know how things go. At the moment i'm trying to convince my wife that we should get an indoor aviary rather than just a cage... but we will see about that.

 

Thank you,

 

Chris

ps. you can see pogi's weblog here at www.happiestpeople.com/pogi .. i still need to add ganda to it though.

All those pictures are fantastic! He is a right pretty bird.

 

And I could use an indoor aviary myself...but I really don't have anywhere I could put one and have it look right. I'm all for getting rid of some furniture to make room, but no one else here will go for that so I make do with cages.