I'm just shy of one year being a budgie owner. I thought this might be a good time to tell my story and share current and prospective events to come with my budgie and breeding experiences.

 

First, I am currently a stay at home wife and mother of two toddlers in USA, PA. I am and always have been a major animal lover. I almost went to school for veterinarian medicine, but couldn't handle the idea of having to put an animal down or delivering the horrible news to a family that their beloved pet would not be coming home with them. I've also thought of working for animals shelters, but could not fathom the idea of feeding a precious animal one day and going to the cage the next and it be gone due to his "time's up". So I do my best to love the animals I have and enjoy the company of others when I experience them.

 

As a child my parents had several parakeets in an aviary and soon after breeding, babies, etc... I enjoyed them thoroughly, but unfortunately was limited in my contact due to being a youngster. Now as an adult, I too own several keets and have experience both the sorrows and rewards of loving them all.

 

I got my first keet as a Christmas gift in 2007. Ironically, he was white as snow and I named him Innocents. Innocents is an albino cock. I didn't like him being alone so I got him a friend before the new year rolled around and he was a green opaline cock and I named him Tinker. I did not want them in a small cage with no room to fly, but was low on money to really do much. My husband and I created a small aviary from a dresser and they were in heaven. So knowing there was plenty of room now, in April of 2008 I bought two more. It was then I brought home Patches and Angel. They were both beautiful Dominant Pied Hens, one yellow/green and one white/sky. So now I had four young, healthy, beautiful birds and my flock was "born".

 

Then one day I was on line and came across an add from a women who was expecting her third child and could no longer keep her keets. She was looking to re-home them and I contacted her to see if I could be their new owner. She chose me and my home and soon my flock of four become seven. She had given me a gorgeous Sky blue YF2 greywing split to recessive pied cock named Raine, a Cobalt blue normal hen named Jasmine, and a green recessive pied hen named Sunny. Space was now getting a bit cramped and I did some remodeling of the aviary adding another dresser, but knew this could only be temporary until I could afford to buy an aviary or build a more suitable one.

 

So then, I went to the pet store to buy some ladders and supplies for the aviary and walked by the parakeet center. There in the cage, all alone with no one, was this Mauve opaline hen... I couldn't leave her there and convinced my husband to let me go back in and adopt her. So in June 2008, Pearl become my eighth bird in the flock and holding off on building a new aviary could no longer wait.

 

My husband and I built a new aviary that stood 6 feet high, 4 feet wide and 2 feet deep. This was a storage shelving unit bought from Lowes and some wire. It came out great and my birds couldn't have been happier to have all this space to fly back and forth and climb from top to bottom. Bird baths, feed dishes, toys, ropes, you name it they had it and they were loving it.

 

So, now it was known that I had 5 hens and 3 cocks and the numbers needed to be evened out. Not having the advantages of breeders right around the corner like in Australia, here in the states the only place (besides an add on line or in the paper) to get keets is to go to the pet shops. So off I went to get two more keets. This was now August 2008 and some of the mature birds of my flock were showing signs of courting and I needed to get things settled and decide if and who breeding was going to be permitted. So now I brought home Tex, a Sky blue opaline cock and Sam, a normal cobalt hen. At the time because they were young and I didn't know how to sex young budgies, I trusted the word of the pet store clerk that they were both boys..... WRONG...

I was hoping for two males so that this time next year my flock was a complete mature breeding flock. So it's now about 8 months since I brought home my first keet and my flock is 10 birds strong and some of them are getting ready to take things to a whole new level..... TO BE CONTINUED...

Edited October 14, 200816 yr by Neat

Thanks for sharing your story with us