Hi All,

 

I have now been set up for 8 months and had a pretty good breeding season from Sept to Jan, Bred about 50 Young from 20 or so pairs. Which i think is pretty good for just starting. I've now built up my collection of birds.

 

My question to all of you.

 

When do you pair up your Budgies? Is there a certain time of year/season you wait for?

 

Most of my birds have not been breeding since Jan/Feb 08. I only have a selected few pairs breeding at the moment.

 

As I'm in Victoria which can get cold in Winter I was thinking about pairing my birds up either Queens Birthday weekend in June. Or the Middle of July and breed them for 2 Clutches Each depending on how each pair goes.

 

Would it be too cold at this time of year? or do Budgies breed all year round?

 

I do breed my budgies in a bird room but it is Outside.

Personally I do not breed in the cooler months and winter. I feel it is too risky for the eggs and chicks. I use the cooler months to rest my birds and get them in top condition for spring

I generally breed all year round as I have aircoolers for the summer to keep them comfortable. But this year I will rest them during the coldest part of the year as I lose more chicks then due to hatchings through the night and a chick goes unnoticed and unfed through the cold of the night. I lose more chicks through cold weather than any through warm weather.

A good rule of thumb is to set them when they are ready. When they are in condition. I start to check this around the winter solstice.

 

December 21-22 Solstice is Winter in Northern Hemisphere

 

Winter solstice in 2008 from Australian time zones will be on 21 June

I've notice that when i've breed through summer I have smaller size birds compared to any other time of the year ....

A good rule of thumb is to set them when they are ready. When they are in condition. I start to check this around the winter solstice.

 

December 21-22 Solstice is Winter in Northern Hemisphere

 

Winter solstice in 2008 from Australian time zones will be on 21 June

 

 

That sounds like something from Stone Henge

 

Show breeders breed pretty much all year. To try and get a jump on the show season they will have pairs down over Dec to try and breed numbers for the next years rings.

 

I used to pair up on up on the Queens Birthday weekend in June. I remember the August westerly winds blowing straight in the shed by which time I had fledglings. And would stop around Dec to spend more time with the family without feathers!

Edited April 21, 200817 yr by throwback

If it sound like Stone Henge…maybe the people of the time of Stone Henge were smarter than we are now…

 

The natural world still responds to the increasing hours of daylight, I keep bees & already you find in July they have already started to lay up their brood nests & are increasing…chooks are starting to lay their spring flush of eggs, the early deciduous fruit trees are in bloom.

 

But I don't think Budgies are so in tune with this rhythm because of the irregularity of seasons in the Australian bush, the more arid areas that are the Budgies natural environment, so they are pretty much ready to breed whenever there is plenty of food. If we're doing the right thing by them & supplying them a good varied diet that means any time. Experts have done work on the wild Budgerigar & found the males gonads are stimulated by certain conditions [the rainy seasons, food etc] but I think the bird we now keep is basically domesticated & it seems to me that males are almost ready at any time.

 

I live in an area where the temperature rarely goes below 2c even at night & the days are mild even in winter [mostly 17c to 23c] I started breeding seriously in February 2007 & still have some pairs mated, not the same pairs of course. I mainly give each pair two batches then remove them & have other pairs ready to go down, I have found very little difference in the number of young bred, but also here we don't get the severe heat in summer, which would be good to avoid in some areas. During this time it was rare that when a pair was put down they wouldn't breed successfully. But of late whether it's because I have what are considered more "improved" [show types now] I am having a much bigger percentage of birds that don't go down in the 10 to 14 days that is considered normal.

 

I would suggest that you decide on your local conditions, I don't think that most areas of Australia are too cold to breed, but if you think they are just avoid that time of year, then if you start something like July/August then breed till you think it's too hot, then rest & if you wish to breed again start some time like February until it gets cold. If not & you only want one breeding season per year decided which is best & stick to that.

Edited April 21, 200817 yr by Norm

If it sound like Stone Henge…maybe the people of the time of Stone Henge were smarter than we are now.

 

In 1963, Gerald Hawkins used a computer to match lunar and solar events as they would have appeared to the ancient builders with various structural alignments at Stonehenge. His results, published in the 1965 book "Stonehenge Decoded," were startling. It takes 56 years for the moon to complete one full eclipse cycle. Hawkins found that specific events, such as a total lunar eclipse, could be predicted years into the future using Stonehenge's 56 Aubrey Holes as a "computer."

 

Hawkins was able to match many events of importance to the ancients, such as solstices, equinoxes, and midsummer and midwinter points to alignments in the complex. Stonehenge, writes Hawkins, was a Stone Age computer that allowed the ancients to track significant solar and lunar events for many years into the future. Many do not agree with Hawkins, saying that such calculations would have been far beyond the builders' capabilities. Yet the alignments seem to occur well beyond sheer coincidence and, given the hundreds of other "sacred monuments" found around the world, Hawkins' hypothesis seems to be the most logical.

 

Maybe it was a huge aviary :hap:

 

I have been breeding off and on for 30 years, I have never noticed any difference in the seasons or the moon that have any effect on the birds. Except one, RAIN!

It is really up to the birds. Study them hard, look for changes not just in there cere but there whole behaviour!

Honestly, I breed when the birds are ready, as in not moulting, etc. AND when it is convenient for me. If I know I have time away coming up, I will not breed as then I miss that time. For example, I am going to Perth later this year. I will not have pairs in breeding cages when I am gone.