Budgie breeding.

[Smoggie]

Hello. Can any experienced budgie breeders give me some advice on breeding budgies. I know I can look things up. I have tons of books. But it's not the same as getting advice and tips and tricks of people who have done it first hand. Thankyou. I'm asking because one day I would like my 2 budgies to have babies.

From Smoggie's daughter. Thankyou in advance.

[andyjevs]

It's very tricky to breed a pair of budgies that are in a cage. Budgies need an aviery to successfully breed and you need lots of budgies. A colony of 40 in a 10'x12'aviery would be fine. This would allow them to pick their own mates. Otherwise you might get serious fighting especially between the hens. When i used to breed them, in used to put loads of nest boxes out in the aviery in spring....if i had 20 pairs, i'd put out 30+ boxes to stop fighting. Budgies are very prolific and each pair will often produce 5 babies....up to 3 times a year. They are lovely to keep on a colony in an aviery and breeding can bring you a bit of cash too.

[les saisies]

I used to keep budgies for many years; giving up only about 5 years ago.

It will be almost impossible for a single pair of birds to successfully breed on their own as they are colony breeders as the other person says. However i would suggest that a flight of approx. 6ft x 4 ft x 6ft high with a solid roof, say wood and felt, and clear sheeting to provide shelter from wind and rain would be adequate. Allow for sufficient ventilation and use 1ins x 1/2 welded mesh fixed to the inside of the framework as the birds will chew all unprotected timber.

3 pairs of birds will be enough but allow at least 6 nest boxes all positioned at the same height or you may have problems.

Green budgies are dominent to all other colours in simple terms and so i would suggest that you keep to blues and greys and then introduce other dominent factors such as spangles, dominent pieds and clearwings later to add variety.

You will have to keep selling some of your stock as a small aviary of these dimentions would not safely hold more than say 30 birds but by keeping the colours i suggest you should not have too much trouble getting rid of surplus stock.

Do not let hens breed older than 2 years and ***** 3 years.

suggest selling all ***** every year and replace with new unrelated stock to avoid inbreeding but keep your own young hens for breeding purposes. Hens do not like moving home to often. At the end of the year reduce back to 3 pairs again

Could go on more but i think this is enough for now

Good luck. I wish i still had mine but that is another story.

[les saisies]

**** male budgies