Hi all,

 

I purchased Coco from our local petshop as a baby bird about 3 weeks ago. The girl that served me told me that Coco was a girl. After information searching online I am not so sure. I think Coco is a recessive pied. Is this correct? Her cere is a pale pinkish mauve colour. I also learnt that recessive pieds do not develop the white rim around their iris like other budgies. Is this correct? Is it true that female budgies don't talk readily, are not as responsive to human contact and are generally harder to tame when compared to male budgies? I had always thought this was just an old wives tale.

 

Thanks for filling me in.

 

Coco is a recessive pied male. It is correct that recessive pieds don't develop iris rings, this can makes it quite difficult to tell their age. As far as females not responding to humans as well as males is concerned I think that it is probably an old wives tale

If you want him to respond to you then remove the mirror straight away as he will bond to the 'mirror budgie' instead of you

Hello and welcome :rip:

 

I agree that your Coco is a pretty boy His cage is not ideal unfortunately - budgies tend to be very uncomfortable in a round cage.

Good luck with the bonding. there are some great articles in the FAQ's about taming and bonding.

Removing the mirror is a great place to start.

Welcome...you have a cute budgie :rip:

You've already been given good advice especially about the mirror and the round cage. Unfortunately you DON'T have an ideal budgie cage. It is more suited to canaries or finches. BUT when you can get another, that one will be a fine transport cage to and from the vets etc.

Here is a good article on cages http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index....58&hl=caGES

Edited October 22, 200816 yr by KAZ

your bird is very cute! Welcome to the forum. There is alot of fantastic information on here that I'm sure you will find interesting. Welcome welcome welcome!

I agree with Neville, I had a recessive pied male too you can see him in my signature.

 

In our FAQ section under Cages you will find good articles on different cages that are ideal for your budgie. Liv is right round cages are not good they are a hazard to a bird emotionally and physically. You can get a decent cage for a good cost when you look around you don't have to pay the high prices at the store.

 

Welcome to the forum and we look forward to getting to know you and Coco better :rip:.

Edited October 22, 200816 yr by **Liv**
typo liz to liv

Hi, welcome to the forums :rofl:

You have such a nice budgie.

I don't know about whether the male/female bonding thing is an old wives tale. I think there is definitely truth to it, just not sure how much.

 

Males definitely learn to talk more readily than females. I had over 40 budgies when I was growing up, and most of them were at least slightly tame because we had them from babies, and only one female ever learned to talk. And she didn't talk at all clearly, compared to the males. I probably had at least 10 males who learned to talk, perhaps more - they all tended to talk at one point or another when they learned it off each other, but those ones didn't talk as often as the real pet ones we had.

 

It is hard for me to say how easily females can tame, because although we did tame females, we only had females when we already had other birds, so they were hand tame in the sense that we could get them out and have them on us and around us, and get them to step up. But, they were bonded to the other birds of course. Whereas I've now had 3 male budgies completely on their own, and they bonded extremely well. But it's not fair to compare those to my females who never were an only budgie. I think all the budgies we had once we had more of them were similar - males and females - although females tended to bite more, and males seemed to prefer chatting back at us through the side of the cage and sometimes came over to the side for a kiss.

 

So I think there could be some truth in it, but it's only from my experience, and it doesn't completely write off females -I'm sure they can make good pets too but I would like to hear from someone who's kept a female as an only budgie.

Hi Everyone

 

Thank you all for the good advice and for sexing Coco. I didn't really care if he was a boy or a girl but it's nice to be able to call him a him. He is bonding quite well and is really getting tame. I agree he is very cute. About his cage. Actually we have two cages, one is pretty identical to cage A & B in the link that Kaz posted, I bought that one from the pet shop. The cage Coco is in is huge and very heavy, I can't really lift it around. It is bolted to a beam in our lounge room. I just measured it and it's diameter is 93cm and height is 100cm. The wire is snake wire to keep out snakes (pythons) which, however careful we are, sometimes get in. I would hate it if Coco were taken by a snake. I bought the other cage (rectangular one) mainly just to transport him in it from the petshop and if it were needed at other times, like holidays etc. So anyway he stayed in the rectangular cage for about a week but kept flying to the round cage and so I set that one up too. I don't know why he prefers the round cage but he does and if I want him to stay in the other cage I will have to hide the round cage from him. Should I do that? I feel a bit mean. Anyhow thanks so much to everyone for their advice which I appreciate.

Welcome Penny, Coco is gorgeous