BellaOnline Forums Home and Garden Birds Budgie breeding question

Hi, everyone! I'm new here, but I've been finding great information on your site, so I'm hoping someone can help me out. I bred my budgies about 3 years ago and had troubles finding homes for my babies. I eventually found them homes, but it was quite a job and I had to let them go for free, so I haven't tried it again since. But I loved breeding my budgies! It was so rewarding to watch those little, naked, so-ugly-they're-cute babies grow up into full fledged adults. So, I'm wondering how other's manage to find homes for their babies? I tired advertsising on some websites, but I got no replies. I tried the local pet shops, but they are all national chains and have suppliers already and weren't interested. What other choices do I have? I'd really like to do some more breeding and a pair I have has already started without me! She was laying eggs on the cage floor, so I decided to give her a box to do it properly.

Thanks in advance for your help!
Laura

Actually, I have another question...

The pair that has started breeding are siblings. I'm not planning on keeping the eggs (I've already removed two), but I wondered how bad or hard it is to split the couple up? I have one female and three males, and of all the boys, she picks her brother! Just figures! I know budgies usually mate for life, so I'm not particularly happy about splitting them up. However, I don't want this particular pair to breed again for obvious reasons. But like I said above, I do want to breed my birds again.... but Twig is the only female! And even if I wasn't concerned about emotionally scaring my birds, I wouldn't know how to seperate them without just getting rid of one the pair. If they are in seperate cages, they'd still know the other one was near and pine for their mate, wouldn't they? My only other option is to buy a fifth budgie, but I think that's getting a little crowded for the cage and semi-limited space I have.

What's sorta sad is that if I didn't know they were siblings, they'd be such a cute couple! Branch (the male) is such a good mate so far. He pays constant attention to Twig and she loves every second. It's a shame the babies would be inbred. How bad is it to inbred budgies? I hate taking away her eggs, but it seems like the right thing to do concidering the circumstances. I gave her a box to lay the eggs in, just to make sure she wouldn't hurt herself somehow while laying them. I'd love to see what their babies look like, but I really don't want to have sickly or deformed birds because the parents are siblings. How likely is this?

I always avoided inbreeding completely when I was breeding birds. Some breeders do it, but I have seen some babies with deformed feet (or just die young) due to inbreeding and I wasn't willing to take the chance. Out of a clutch of 5 babies, you may have 1 (or maybe 2) healthy babies and the rest could be deformed or not make it. Breeding a baby back to a parent is usually a better option, but not brother to sister.

You are right though about how hard it is to break up a bonded pair and it sounds as if they have bonded. You can try setting them both up with another mate in separate cages with a nestbox and give that a try. It may take a long time, but hopefully they will both decide to make use of the mate they have.

One way to find homes for the babies might be to contact a parrot club in your area. Let them know you have babies and they will let the members know in case someone is looking for budgies. They are probably also being contacted by people outside the club who are looking for babies and they could then refer those people to you.

Thanks so much for the advice! I think I will keep taking Twig's eggs from her. She's not actually sitting on them, anyway. I may try to seperate her from her brother, too. I'm in no rush to breed, so I don't mind if it'd take her a while to adjust. It's for her own good, anyway, right? I'll have to get a new female, for Branch, too. Do you think putting the new pairs in seperate cages but in the same room will work? Or should I try to keep the cages in different rooms?

I wish I had known you were here the first time I was breeding! I have one other question for you concerning cleaning and nest boxes. I wasn't prepaired for the stench and the mess! Last time, I had to take the babies out of their box regularly to wash off their feet because there was so much clumped up poop on them that they couldn't stand up at all. I also would clean the bottom board of the box. I'm wondering if there is a way to prevent this situation or if I did something wrong that they got that dirty to begin with? From what I read, budgies don't require any kind of nesting material other than the box, but I thought maybe having some kind of nesting material would help with the mess and with cleaning. My roommate has a sugar glider and uses cedar shavings for her cage, so I borrowed some to put in Twig's nest box, but then she wouldn't go in there so I removed it again. I figured she might not have liked the smell. Is there a better material that I could use for nesting or was my method of just scrubbing out the box once a week or so the best way to make sure the poop doesn't clump up on the baby's feet? (and to reduce the smell?)

Thanks again! I'm so glad I found you! :-)

Budgies don't like nesting material and will remove most of it. Cedar is a definate "NO", but pine shavings would be fine. Problem is they will probably remove every piece of shaving before nesting. I used to put the shavings in the box anyway as that gave them a little work to do to make their nest just right. Cleaning the box out every few days is probably the best way to keep things clean.

keeping your budgies cages in separate rooms may make things better - but they will probably hear each other anyway and it may not make much difference. It will still take awhile for them to accept new mates.

Thanks again, Mavis! I really appreciate your advice. Once My pairs get aquanted, I'll update on how the breeding goes.

Hi Everyone!

I stumbled upon this forum last night when our budgie unexpectedly layed an egg in her seed dish which she's been digging out for weeks (we wondered why) and my daughter freaked out! This thread gave me some peace of mind.

We got the birds a nesting box but the hen couldn't find the egg so we put it back into the seed dish.

We have no idea what to do next or what to look for. Will the birds take care of it themselves? The hen is not sitting on the egg but they are paying pretty close attention to it. I'm not even sure if it's fertilized but chances are that it is. I really hope it survives or my daughter will be so disappointed.

I would really appreciate some advice, this was so unexpected. The pet people told us that birds don't produce babies unless they have a nesting box so we didn't even give this a thought...duh!

Thank you so much.

HI im very new to bird breeding myself but im pretty sure that the hens wont sit on the egg until she has laid her full clutch. i think you should put the egg back into the box and introduce your hen to the box i dont think it is a good idea having the egg in the seed dish you never no she mite lay more eggs and sit on them then if they hatch you cant have little babies in the seed dish. but im not very sure what you should do im new to it myself i think you shuold wait untill mavis can give you some advice.

Unless this is a very large seed dish, I can't see the pair laying a clutch, incubating them & raising babies in it. Sometimes they have been known to raise a clutch on the floor of the cage, but not in a seed dish. If this egg is fertile, it will be fine if it is not incubated for awhile, so it may be worth it, to put it into the nest box. If they have actually mated and are going to raise a clutch, she may destroy this egg when they get going again, or she may just sit on it with the rest. Budgies lay eggs every 2nd day and normally start sitting on them by the 3rd or 4th egg.

Good luck - please let us know how they do.

Thanks Phillip and Mavis.

We have moved the egg into the nesting box. We found another egg yesteday, unfortunately broken on the floor of the cage. Neither bird has approached the nesting box but the male sits above the seed dish all the time as though he is guarding.

Today the hen is digging in the seed dish again like she's getting ready to lay another. My daughter is afraid that she won't be able to find the egg in the nesting box though.

We will introduce them to the box as you have suggested Phillip and see how it goes.

Thank you for the help. Will keep you posted.