G'day. Found this forum while looking for information & decided to join to ask you good people for some advice. I need some advice about nesting boxes because I'm getting conflicting information from different people in town. I'm a member of my towns' Men's Shed & I was elected to make budgie nesting boxes that we sell, along with other items we make, at one of the local shops. They are made out of 19mm pine.

 

I have been making these for a while & the only directions I was given to start with, was to make a box with an opening lid on top. Neither the person who elected me to make them, or myself, have ever had anything to do with budgies, so I had to guesstimate the size to make them. After reading some posts in this forum, I now see what I make is a bit too small. okay, I now have a good idea of what size to make them, so that part is fixed.

 

I was also directed to make single, double & triple boxes, & it's the last two of these where the conflicting information comes in that I need your advice on. A single box is easy, one nest one bird. The way I make the doubles & triples, which is the way I was told to make them, is like this.

 

Double box: An oblong box twice the width of the single with 2 entry holes each with perch, 2 hollows & a dividing wall between them. The dividing wall is 8mm thick lining board.

 

Triple box is triple the width of the single with 3 entry holes with perches, 3 hollows & 2 dividing walls to make 3 compartments.

 

okay, so the person who first told me to make them is happy with this, but one of the other members (who has a budgie) says it's wrong & I should make the doubles & triples like a 2 or 3 story building. One compartment above the other & not side by side.

 

Now I'm being told by someone else in town (who also has budgies) that I should NOT be making the doubles & triples because the birds won't be happy being right next to another bird, even though there's a dividing wall between them. He says only one bird will occupy a double, & only the 2 end compartments will be occupied in the triple, leaving the middle compartment unoccupied.

 

So what's the deal here, as I'm really confused now. Are the double & triple boxes the right thing to make or not. Any advice you can give me will be greatly appreciated.

 

Thank you,

 

Andrew.

Edited August 23, 201410 yr by drifter

Hi, welcome to the forum.

 

It's great that you are taking the time to look up the best way to construct these boxes. The person who advised you to NOT make doubles and triples is the correct person! If you look around on the forum for threads about colony breeding, you will find out that breeding more than one pair of budgies in the same enclosure can be fraught with problems. Some of the ways they advise to get around these problems is to make sure that each breeding box is at least two feet apart. Therefore, connecting them together as in a double or triple box prevents you from having that kind of distance.

 

I'll try to find some links to some colony breeding threads for you.

 

On a side note, the person who advised having the compartments arranged vertically is even doubly wrong, because budgies (most birds) prefer to be higher up. So there is always competition for the highest box in an aviary. None of the birds would want to choose a nest directly below another bird's nest. The usual advice is to not only space the boxes two feet apart, but to place them all at the same hight so that they all have the same advantage as far as that goes.

 

Good luck with your box making endeavours. I think there are also threads on here about box style. Personally, I like boxes that have the door on the back, not the top. With two pieces of wood, so that the lower piece stays put to hold in the bedding and the chicks, while the top piece can be raised up a smidge for peeking in. But that is because I hang my boxes on the outside of the cage. I suppose in an aviary, there would not be access to the back of the box if it were attached to the wall.

 

Here is a link to the FAQs page about colony breeding: http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs/index.php?action=artikel&cat=8&id=146&artlang=en

 

Here is a link to a pinned thread about colony breeding: http://forums.budgie...showtopic=28294

 

Hope these are helpful to you.

Edited August 28, 201410 yr by Finnie

Thank you for replying Finnie, much appreciated. Your information was very helpful, as were the links you posted.

 

Cheers,

 

Andrew

You're welcome. Glad I could help.

 

You might also be interested in this thread too drifter:

 

http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/index.php?showtopic=28320

 

Great nest box design as well as breeding cabinets. Might see if there is a market there for your man shed mates.