Hi all,

The last 3 or 4 months have been a steep learning curve to say the least. Amongst other things I learned, budgies can be very aggressive. Sadly, I had some fatalities but some I was able to save. One of the injured budgies has lost all its "nails" on her claws and even some claws hacked off before I could save it. I watched one budgie pinning another down on its back, jumping on top of it and starting to hack. He was so busy that I was able to grab him and remove him from the avairy. But nevertheless, it is so lovely that there is now peace and unity in the aviary and my budgies have started raising their young. Each nesting box has 6 or so eggs in it and in each nest 2 chicks have hatched. My question is now: will the other eggs hatch as well and in what amount of time should that happen??

Can't wait to see what colours the chicks will be It is so cute to see the man of the house feeding his wife ..... lol. Its so nice just watching them!

Just felt I had to share how rewarding this all is :-)

Hi,

If your colony breeding you will have hens fighting over nest box's etc, cage your pairs if you can. The time of hatching is the same as laying, they lay every 2 days and chicks hatch every 2 days. usually.

If you have 2 chicks each new chick should arrive every 2 days if eggs are fertile. Be aware that even now you may have other hens attacking nest box's, they can kill chicks or throw out eggs if they decide they want that nest.

 

It is lovely to watch them all in a happy aviary, as we all know though, things can change very quickly. l.o.l.

Enjoy your chicks and post some pics when you can.

_{Hi Gaby, Robyn and readers. Don't mean to hijack this thread but here I am. I am colony breading or at least trying to. I have 7 birds in colony with 4 hens and 3 cocks. The cocks have been madly running up and down the shelf in front of the nest boxes for the past 2 weeks, 2 hens in particular had taken some interest in the boxes, looking in and tentatively hopping in and out. Today all of the hens have decided that they want one box in particular, one will hop in and defend the territory with her mate standing by. Various other hens will poke their heads in, receiving a less than warm welcome. the hen will after a varying period of time exit the box and another will immediately take up residence. this goes on until they have all had a go and then will either continue the cycle or all will give it a rest have a feed or just do other budgie things and then the cycle begins. I am wondering if there may be more birds in the colony than will be safe for new mums and possible chicks. Am considering building a smaller breeding cage and thinning the colony in the aviary. Any hints ideas appreciated. Paul}

Paul, unfortunately that is one of the down sides of colony breeding, quite often the hens will want one box and it can cause aggression leading to fights causing injury and if you're really unlucky death. Make sure if you are going to colony breed make sure you have twice as many nest boxes to pairs.

Thanks Nadene. Makes sense

Hi Paul, if possible cage your pairs to save a lot of heartache, if not possible do as Nadene advised and add more box's, not too close together, hope this helps with problem. Maybe adding another Cock to even things up may help also.

made a couple of new nest boxes and put them in aviary yesterday. all activity stopped for the rest of the day. this morning the two cluckiest hens have taken up residence in the new boxes and there now doesn't seem to be to much quarrelling over real-estate. fingers crossed. am also in the process of building some breading cages so will be able to separate at least pair.

aviary is quite quarrelsome but think they are sorting things out, I hope,

a topic worth reading

http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=28294

Edited May 27, 201312 yr by **KAZ**