It's recently occurred to me that one of my budgies may be significantly older than my other birds. I was just wondering if there's anyway to sort of tell? About a year ago, I had another budgie that developed a tumor in it's chest area, I'm not sure the type of tumor or anything, but it made him lose a lot of weight and would have just died a painful and slow death, had I not brought him to my very amazing avian vet. The very nice doctor informed me that he was well over 10 years old, being that it's a tumor young budgies never get, and she said she could tell he was older by looking into his eyes, anyway, I was wondering if there's anything like that to maybe help me determine the approximate age of this particular budgie. I ask because it was a rescue from an old lady who died, but no one has any idea how long she had her. I'm going on 4 years with her, and she still enters breeding condition regularly (the brown flakey cere, right?), but she's never laid any eggs for me, anyway, I just woke up today concerned. Aside from my self, I have a love bird whose very attached to this particular budgie.

Hm, when you say the vet could tell by looking into the eyes, was she using an opthalmoscope thingy? Maybe she could see some kind of structure inside the eye to indicate old age? Because I thought that once a budgie becomes an adult, you can no longer tell its age by its eyes. (We all look for lack of iris rings to tell the babies.)

 

The oldest budgie I have is at least 7. His age is unknown, because the people I got him from found him loose in their front yard, and that was 7 years ago. I've had him one year. He doesn't look any different than my other budgies, except he's a little "rough" looking, and molts hit him hard. My next oldest is 4, and he's starting to look a little rough to me too. So I apparently can't tell the difference between a 4 year old and a 7 year old.

 

Maybe someone will come along who has had one live into their teens, and they might know if they go through any "old age stages".

 

Mabye she's as young as 5, and you and the lovebird will have her around for quite a while yet.