Hi

About 5 months ago we bought 3 pairs of budgies. for the last 3 months 1 pair have been trying to nest in the food bowl, they would empty it out and the hen would nest in it.

So on advice we purchased 4 nesting boxes, we now have a total of 12 eggs (4 from each pair).

 

now i am wondering if we have done the wrong thing? are our birds too young?

the pair that were trying to nest in the feed bowl both have dark cere's, but the other two males have very light cere's with just a tinge of blue, the hens are brown but not chocolate colour yet. ( i have read in this forum that , that is a good thing) Although we have eggs does this mean that our eggs may be infurtile? could our males be too young to reproduct at the moment?

If our hens are too young will this affect them in the future?

thanks :dbb1:

Edited June 22, 200519 yr by nerwen

okay first we need to roughly work out the age of the birds. You have had them for 5 months. Where they all young then. As in did they have bars coming all the way down their head to meet their ceres?

 

Budgies can produce young from around 6 months and onwards, yet are not ready mental for them and this is when troublesome mothers start in. Leave the babies, not feedig correctly, plucking or attacking them.

 

As to the cere colours the male might be out of season so you might not have any furtile eggs from those pairings.

 

Hope this helps and by all means keep asking questions :dbb1:

Also is there any picture that we could see?? It may help work out age for you or it may not either way we all love to see pics

I'm not sure what you mean by bars down their heads?

 

We have no idea how old they were when we got them, but we were silly enough to take the advice of the pet shop who told us to just wait till the end of summer and then put the breeding boxes in, which is what we have done. ( wish I thought to find out more before we did this)

Thanks for you reply

 

Just tried to get some picture's but couldnt get any good ones! will try again tomorrow.

A lot of people say to wait until the hens are at least 12 months old before breeding them, but I think closer to 18 months would be better. I can see where 12 months would be a safe age, but in retrospect while I watch my budgies (all offspring were kept) the hens are now about 14-16 months old, and they still seem like babies in some ways. I wouldn't breed any of my hens yet. They would probably be okay, but having so many birds in my house gives me a very unique perspective of their emotional as well as physical development and I still think mine are a little young to handle the rigors of parenthood. Birds kept in an aviary may mature faster, and maybe I have slowed my birds development by being such a part of their everyday lives - they are all still pretty tame for having so many - but as I watch the males sad attempts at wooing the hens and the hens bored responses I think they really are not ready for that yet. If you really don't know how old they are, err on the side of caution and wait a bit before you try to breed them again. It's possible they were all very young when you got them and could only be 7 months old right now. The hens can lay eggs then, but as nerwen said are really not ready to be parents at that age. Did all the birds come from the same pet store? If so, it is possible they could be related, which would mean they really shouldn't be bred together at all.

 

As far as the bars go, a baby bird will have bars going all the way down to the cere. For the next several molts, the bars will recede a little bit. If they still had bars, they hadn't been through their first molt yet, and were under 4 months old. Here are some barheads and some more babies. The second link doesn't show the forheads very well, but the one on the far right you can see, and two more of them still have black spots on their beaks, which is also another sign they are young. The black beak spots disappear at about 6 weeks. Hope this helps.

Edited June 22, 200519 yr by Rainbow

Hi,

Thanks for showing me about the bands!

I have been trying all afternoon to try to post some picture's, but i cant seem to resize them. I will keep trying!

Can anyone help me? seems budgies aren't the only things i dont know much about

okay, I've just been reading in the forum about pied birds etc, and found it most helpful. both the males in question are I think pied and one has white irises. Their cere's are pink with a tinge of blue and look smooth and shinny. Also the head bands are to the back of their heads. So I'm guessing that they probably aren't as young as I thought?

What do you think?

 

If someone can help me with re-sizing my picture's, I would be greatful. Then I could show you what I'm talking about!!!

If they are small files you can email them to me and i'll resize them.

Thanks Bea,

You are most kind.

Love your little feathered friends. Soooo cute

Finally some picture's.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b53/tigalilly/56765ca6.jpg

picture 1 is of the pair who were trying to nest in the feed bowl. picture 2 is of the same male 5 months later.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b53/tigalilly/b7389d03.jpg

 

 

picture 3 is the second pair to start nesting and picture 4 is the male again now. He hasn't changed much.

 

 

Both these two picture's were taken today, this male is the one with the white iris.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b53/tigalilly/e89020a5.jpg

This picture is of the whole bunch, when we first got them. Our babies!!!!

We have another little boy "Pip", who is my daughters baby, will get some picture's of him next as we could do with some advice about him too.

 

*some too big for board* -N

Edited July 31, 200519 yr by nerwen

Very attractive little flock you've got there!

Julie

Thanks guy's for your kind comments about our birds.

I have no idea what type our birds are, we just got the colours we liked. All were quite under weight when we got them, but they have all come on really well and are all looking great.

We love our birds and my girls and I spend a lot of time out side just watching what they get up too. They are so funny at times!!!

Nat

Love your flock, Like your white pied.

Nice birds

You have some lovely budgies.