Hi there,

 

Im new to owning budgies.

 

My wife and I currently have one female English Budgie, we are looking for advice on where to purchase a female bush budgie.

 

We have heard bad things in the past about buying them from pet stores and unreputable breeders as they can have diseases/MegaBacc etc

 

Can anyone recommend a good breeder in Melbourne and anything to look out for?

 

Thanks

James

Edited January 18, 201213 yr by jamesk

Hi there! Welcome to the forum.

 

I would recommend having a good think about the kind of budgie you want.

 

If you want a mate for the budgie you allready have, it might be best to get a male.

 

In my experience with my own and other peoples birds, two females will not usually be great friends (my opinion), they probably won't hurt each other - just squabble a lot, where as a male and female will get along fine.

 

You are probably trying to do the right thing by not breeding them, but they won't breed anyway unless you give them a breeding box.

 

Even if you get a budgie from a reputable breeder you will still have to quarantine your new bird. There is a lot of quarantine information on this site, so i strongly suggest you research that as much as you can.

 

On this site 'english' budgies are referred to as show or exibition budgies (you might get heckeled for calling them 'english').

 

I dont know where you are in Melbourne, but I know Bird City in Coburg always has bush budgies and never seems to have many show or pet budgies, but give them a call before you drive out there.

 

Good luck! Budgies are heaps of fun, and this is a fantastic site!

Thanks for the information and warm welcome

 

I think a male budgie could be a very good idea if they are unlikely to breed. We do want a companion for our 1st bird.

 

I will also check out Bird City, thanks for the contact.

 

Ive found some good information about quarantining on this forum.

 

Lol, i didnt know show budgies were referred to as "english", thanks for letting me know!!!

Well, just because there is no nestbox doesnt mean the female wont think its a good idea to start a family if she likes the boy well enough, so the thing to do is make sure there arent any large seed dishes, snugglehuts or similar that she will think makes a good nest......if you buy a boy budgie.

Girl to girl budgie combinations usually means squabbles over perches and possession of things. They do this more if the cage isnt massive and room to get away from each other.

"English " budgies is a term some people use but is mostly frowned upon as wrong terminology as most of us here know the budgie to be australian especially when the budgie being spoken about actually lives in australia too :D

 

 

PS Welcome

 

Girl to girl budgie combinations usually means squabbles over perches and possession of things. They do this more if the cage isnt massive and room to get away from each other.

 

 

I agree with this. Girls can get possessive of stuff. But they can still bond with each other and be the best of friends. You just have to make sure they have enough room, and at least two of EVERYTHING, so they don't have to share. Two water drinkers, two food cups, two favorite swings, etc..

I too was going to say normally 2 females do not get along, I've had 2 that did bond and get along when I had 4 budgies I had 2 males and 2 females my males bonded to each other and my females bonded to each other and they "ruled the roost" sort of speak They bullied the boys, and when i got more budgies they bullied them too. and I've had 2 females attack each other and came very close to killing on another - it does happen it may not happen often but it happens more than a lot of people think -

 

You can do a lot of things to keep a male and female from breeding, Including but not limited to - not giving them anything that resembles a nest box including an actual nest box(unless you want them to breed when they're of age and ready of course) no Happy huts, tents, or what ever else those things are called around the world - No boxes to play in, Certain toys that are sold in the U.S. (not sure if they're sold world wide or not) Can be seen as nests. like the toys made of 2 Coconut shells one is facing up one is facing down and there is rope holding them together - A lot of birds will see the bottom Shell that is facing upwards as a nest - they also have one that is a Full uncut shell that has a big hole drilled through -again can be seen as a nest then they have one that is a log that has areas cut out but doesn't go all the way through - it's sold as a shred able toy but the birds could gnaw away at the areas that are "indented" to make a nest like they would in the wild in a tree hole.

 

then of course as others have mentioned controlling the day light hours they get.

 

I've heard that offering less "mushy" types food helps to deter them from egg laying/mating - I am not sure how true this is, as "mushy" foods being offered to my birds Never seem to have an effect on them (other wise it doesn't seem to send them into breeding mode)

 

Also another thing I've heard/read and not sure how true it is Is offering less baths/showers/sprays is supposed to stop them from going into breed/egg laying mode Since in the wild they breed during the Rainy season - but I offer mine baths daily and the ones who don't take a bath get sprayed with a spray bottle and its never caused them to start mating

 

what Does seem to cause mine to go into a mating frenzy rather its with cage bars, another bird, Or Trying to mate with me (Ya I have a couple who think I am their mates but they're not budgies) - this is for All my parrots I own is CLEANING - odd I know but every time I get in the birds room and start cleaning It sends my birds into a mating frenzy I don't know why but it has the entire 4 plus years I've had them (Even before I bred them lol) and they don't even care If I've got a shop vac in their cage sweeping out their cage that actually seems to encourage them more lol

Thansk for the great advice guys, definately some things to think about