Fingers crossed for eggs in a few days :)

[IcyWolf]

I've had Quentin and Daphne, our white faced blue pied male and yellow face blue pied hen american budgies paired up for about 3 months and they have had a nest box since December 14th. I was starting to wonder if they would ever breed and was even starting to question if Daphne was really a female. Well, here ceres have become much more "crusty" and brown over the past week and a half and I finally caught them mating today. So hopefully we will have some eggs within the next few days to a week. I'm just excited so I wanted to share I'm not sure if this pair has ever bred before, when I got the budgies I knew that the blue pair had bred quite often and since there was only one nest box between the 5 birds, I'm pretty sure this pair has never had a clutch before. So, I'll be eagerly waiting and we'll just see how things go. Trying to think positively and hope we have better luck with this pair than the last.

 

[roxynoodle]

I wish you the best of luck. You will have to keep us updated on this pair and the zons.

 

[ann]

Congrats!!! Good luck I'm sure you will have great success with your pair, let's see some pics of those babies they're bound to have soon

 

[IcyWolf]

She laid her first egg today! Should have another one on tuesday now, can't wait until I can candle them in about a week

 

[MissyMe83]

Exciting! Wishing you the best of luck this time around.

 

[mnkeastman]

how cool I look forward to reading about them

 

[MikeyTN]

Congrats!!! I hope you have better luck this time around. Im still handfeeding a baby tiel from a friend's mother. And her birds are having babies again so ill be handfeeding more babies soon. I try to take her pair and so I can separate them but she declined.

 

[IcyWolf]

Wow, why is she not raising the babies herself if she is breeding them? Or is she one of those people that thinks her pets have to breed to be happy? I know a few people with dogs that are like that and refuse to get them neutered no matter how much I try to convince them.

 

[MikeyTN]

She doesn't know how to handfeed. They were breeding prior to her giving them a nest box. So she provides them a nest box. They started having babies ever since...

 

[IcyWolf]

Oh okay, good thing she knows you then!

 

[MikeyTN]

I was the one who helped her located the pair, the girl was one of mine. I got 3 total that same day, two boys from the same household that was allergic to them, and a girl that I got the boy from the same lady in a different household. She was allergic to them as well. BUT my partner WANTS the new girl, I had to provide a pair so I give up one of my girls to make my partner happy. Basically traded one for one. I made my promise and I intended on keeping my promise to her so I went forth and brought her the pair that very night. Not long after that her husband passed away and it was her and the birds, she spoil those birds rotten so I understand why she doesn't want to give them up. I offered to give her two baby boys I raised to replace them with so she wouldn't have to deal with babies. The babies were dying one by one on the first batch before I got ahold of them. This last batch there was only two babies and one died the day prior to me picking the other one up, I told her I'm gonna take the baby right away cause there was something that was not right to have the babies die like that. When I received this baby, she was in rough shape, I am unsure of what happened to them. But after baby her for several weeks she recovered as she was under weight and not looking good. She's about to take flight soon. My partner wants to keep her cause she had a rough start in life. But I said we can't keep every single baby we bring in. I try to keep my distance cause IF I get too attached, I may keep her....lol....

 

[IcyWolf]

Aw, so glad you were able to save this one! He's a lucky bird for sure. Do you think the parents just aren't feeding the babies or did she pull them and try to hand feed and it just didn't go well?

 

[MikeyTN]

The first batch was killed by the father from what I understand. Cause when a male wants to mate, they will sometimes kill the offspring cause the female would have nothing to do with mating. In order to mate with her again, the babies must die first. So the very day they were mutilated, he mated with her so my assumption was that he killed them. She told me there was blood everywhere and the babies were pecked to death. This last batch didn't happen that way as I told her to remove the father into a separate cage in a separate room when the babies turned one week old. Cause he didn't kill the last batch until they were almost 2 weeks old. So I took a chance and told her do it at one week. Everything was fine until the day prior to pick up. There was no evidence that baby was pecked, BUT my guess is that he suffocated to death. This baby had stuffs covered on her nostril and beak that I quickly cleaned them off of her the moment I got home to look at her. I just wondered how clean the nest box was....She told me she cleaned it since last batch....But I'm not there to see...I may have to this time to see for myself.

 

[IcyWolf]

That sounds terrible! Poor babies! I hope I never have to deal with that happening, I can't imagine that's an imagine one could easily forget.

 

[MikeyTN]

The thing is when she told me that her babies were killed, my own pair that was with hatchlings tried to killed them as well within days after receiving the news of her babies death. There was blood all over the baby, the first primary flight feather on the right wing would never grow out cause that was part of the area where he was bitten as a baby. But they're all grown up now and in their new homes with happy new owners. I separated the pair as soon as I removed the babies to handfeed. She was very unhappy and started laying eggs by herself in the cage. We tried for almost 2 months until my partner told me to put her back since she is the one my partner asked me to keep when I traded my girl. She's a very very sweet girl!!! So my partner felt bad for her and made me place her back in with the rest of the flock. And yes she is happy once again but I hope she doesn't have any more babies right now....So far the male is bonded with the parakeet pretty good...lol....But I did catch him preening her the other day....

 

[MikeyTN]

Here's pics of the day we brought her home all bony and under weight and now.

 

[MikeyTN]

IF you look closely you can see she had stuff covering her beak close to her cere. The first picture I'm holding her, you can see the bite marks that's starting to heal up close to my wrist....from Willie's bite first then Java....lol....

 

[IcyWolf]

She's beautiful! I see what you mean about the beak crust, that's strange, is it possible that the parents weren't feeding her right and it was forcing the food out her nose?

And ouch about the bites! Macaw and too, that's a double wammy!

 

[MikeyTN]

I'm not sure what the parents did to the babies....Today I moved her into a cage that I cleaned out for her. She's got a new family who lost their Cockatiel over a year ago that's coming to visit her sometime this week. I'm glad they didn't come today as we made trip homedepot twice cause I got the wrong door first and had to return it, second time it was the wrong size and had to exchange....lol....Then scrubbing out cages from top to bottom, inside and out, ekkies are messy eaters....Next week it's Malachai's turn...He's the messiest of all, his cage must be taken apart for a good scrubbing...Java is a very clean bird! I only had to wipe down his cage and wash the grates.