What are the complications of breeding in winter???

 

It's not something i have done before, but everyone else is talking about their breeding and new babies etc, it's making me clucky (for baby budgies that is... i have enough human babies hahahaha)

 

Depends on your conditions...breeding room or otherwise etc. How cold the budgies get. They are less happy to breed through winter. You can lose more babies through winter. Some hens wont sit with the babies full time and keep them warm. I am breeding through winter right now and even with a breeding room, I lost five chicks through the night last night due to hens not keeping them warm.

Hmmm, well since i don't have a breeding room, i think i will stick to what i know and start in spring. i loose very few babies and I'd like to keep it that way

So if i just put 2 pairs into breeding boxes last week that really wasn't the best idea. Silly me i should have looked into it more. Hopefully they will be alright in the breeding room.

 

mathew

My 2 that are rasing and sitting are the only 2 that I will do until come spring ... I haven't had issues before with winter and bubs, But they go thru a lot more feed especailly with 2 hens on 5 chicks that is an extra 10 birds to feed, considering that the b irds are eating more to stay warmer to so I go thru a lot, But i won't put any more up until after winter is ended ....

 

P.s they are out side too

I've got my first pair down at the moment and I never even considered the season! Silly me!! I have them in the garage, seeing the car is never in there, and the temp is at 24 degrees in the evenings, during the day I pull one of the roller doors up to let in extra sunlight and open up the window, making sure there is no draft of course. Are the birds going to be okay?

As Kaz said, it really depends on your breeding room.

 

I do all my breeding from mid April thru to Mid November but that is because I have converted my garage specifically for this purpose. My garage is a brick structure so keeps the warm in, it has an east facing window to let in the early morning light and in the afternoons I open up the side door (to which I have added a fly screen door) and window to ventilate. The floor is concrete and therefor easy to keep clean and I hoover every other day. It's really important to vermin proof your breeding area as those pesky mice can slip between the wire fronts of most cages and harrass your birds at night. During the winter months daylight quality is not as good so it's worth considering running additional full spectrum lighting, such as Arcadia.

Boris was a winter bub.

However some good advice I received was to put the birds down after the winter solstice.

I finished cleaning the breeding cages today so will move the pairs into their breeding cages next week and feed them up for a couple weeks before giving them a nest box (maybe - usually can't wait that long!).