Parakeet question?? i want someone with expierence!plz?

Question

okay well i got this bird and shes a parakeet and i wanted a guy for her and well yea i got more birds for her and when i put them in the same cage as her the others lookes SO big ! she looked like an apple next to gigantic bananas! i also noticed that the other birds that i got have a bunch of stripes(from head to tail) and she only has a couple on her forehead! does that mean that shes to young and the others are too old?? can they still breed ??? okay and i already had one bird right well im not sure if shes a she. her beak isnt blue its kind of but it looks tan but it also has a kind of blu to it but you can barely see it ?? and if those other birds are too old will i still be able to have them in the same cage??? okay if i am able to breed them what do i need to know about that ! ?? i have never breeded please help! thanks

Answer 1

Your first bird is obviously immature; you will have to wait a year or more to breed it.  By all means, get a book on parakeet breeding at the pet store or library.  There are such books.  Good luck -- I never did get mine to breed.

Answer 2

First off, how many birds in total do you have now? If it's more than two, you'll want to make sure you have more males, than females, because the females fight MEAN over males, while males just bicker.

Baby parakeets (about 4months and under) will have stripes over their forehead and around their head in general, whether those stripes continue over the rest of the body depends on their personal colors and genetic make-up, i.e. nothing to do with their age. Because all of your birds have stripes across their foreheads, they are all still babies. Budgies/Parakeets are sexually mature and able to breed around 4 months of age, however it is not advised you breed them until they are at least 1 year old.

Because all of your birds are babies, you won't know FOR SURE whether they are males or females until they are sexually mature (they will shed the bars across their foreheads, and their ceres will turn blue if they are males, and brown/pink/tawny if they are females). If your birds are irregular colors, such as solid yellow, piebald (a solid color and white, or a solid color with one or more other solid colors striped, or patched across their body [shouldn't blend, should be sharp]), or albino, then it will be difficult to tell whether they are male or female, because unlike solid colored parakeets (blue, green, etc), their ceres will not change colors, they will stay that baby pink/white. The way to tell (this works for when they are babies too, regardless of the color of the bird, though it is not 100% fool-proof, so be warned) if they are male or female with these colors, or if they are too young, is that a male with have a solid-colored cere, minimal to no white around the nostrils, while a female will have apparent white around the nostrils, and her cere will tend to be lighter toned in general.

Now, once you are sure you have a pair (male and female), I would advise seperating them all into their own cages, and socializing the two you plan to breed, individually. This will make handling them and their eggs when they do breed, MUCH easier. When taming them, you should start by taking the birds out one at a time, for no more than 10-20 mins each. Talk to them, hang out with them, practice stair-stepping, etc. If the birds are difficult, be patient, work on just getting them to calm down and let you pet them, or approach them.

BREEDING:

When your birds are old enough to breed, you can go ahead and put your males and females together (do NOT put more than one pair in a cage together, females can get nasty and have been known to attack the other's hen, her nest, and her eggs). Make sure you have plenty of calcium available for the birds. Things like mineral blocks, and cuttle bones are great and should always be available. You should also have them use to fruits and vegetables by now (they won't eat them for the longest time, so you'll just have to keep putting in fresh stuff until they figure out it's alright to eat, this could take a while, be patient--NEVER FEED AVOCATO, they're deadly to parakeets). You will need to get a nesting box (just ask for one big enough for parakeets), and some bedding (shaving work well, but make sure they are soft and small). Fill the box up with shavings, deep enough so that they settle at the base of the hole where the pair can enter the box (leave about 1/2in drop from hole to bedding). It may take your pair some time to become interested in eachother, let alone their box. If you like, you can house them with eachother WITHOUT the box for a month in advance to make sure they get along (sometimes it just doesn't work out; they're like people in that). It will be obvious if your pair likes eachother. You should witness frequent grooming, beak tapping, feeding of eachother, and a lot of affectionate cooing, etc. If the attention from one bird to the other is too agressive however, and you notice one or the other constantly fleeing, and/or attacking the other bird, it's probably not a good pair. Eventually you'll notice your male attempting to mount the female. She will rebuke him many times before finally allowing him to breed. You might see this, and you might not, some couples are more secretive than others. Once your female is pregnant, she shouldn't hesitate to be inside her box and start nesting. It will be about a month before she lays any eggs however. You should also notice her starting to lay some larger, moister stools when her time is near... Once she lays, eggs will show up every two days (say she lays one Monday, the next one should show on Wednesday and so on). Parakeets average anywhere from 3-11 eggs (my female laid 6 every clutch), so don't be surprised if you get a lot, or practically none. Your male should take care of feeding his mate, so don't worry if she doesn't come out much.

I don't recommend checking the eggs to see if they are fertile or not, only because it can be dangerous and tricky, handling the eggs, and dealing with a tempermental female. If you really want to however, you can do so by removing the egg, turning off the lights, and putting a flashlight up to it. Make sure you give the egg at least a week or two after it's been laid however. If it's fertile, you should be able to see either a silhouette, some reddish tones, or veins (depending on how old the egg is). If it is not fertile, it should be a monotonous yellow color. DO NOT THROW OUT ANY EGGS UNTIL AT LEAST ONE WEEK AFTER THEIR SCHEDULED HATCH DATE. It will take 3-4wks for your eggs to hatch as well.

When you do decide to throw out the definitely infertile eggs (be sure you map the egg's agg/due dates on a calender every time you notice one laid and one hatched, so you know what eggs are due when, etc.) do it one at a time, with each infertile egg being thrown away a couple days apart from the next, so as not to stress out your hen.

When your eggs have hatched, you can pretty much let your birds take care of everything. You can start handling them once their eyes open and they've acquired their down feathers and are starting to grow in their regular feathers. They'll still be feeble and all, so you'll have to be gentle, but socializing them young will only help in the long run :)

Don't seperate the chicks from their parents until they are able to get around the cage on their own (this includes being able to eat and drink on their own, and get from perch to perch, etc, without any troubles).

Don't be surprised if your pair is agressive, and your male attacks, or even your hen, when you go to check on their progress. It's natural. But taming them while they are babies now, will help when you go to breed them in the future.

Good luck! If you have any questions, feel free to contact me :)

Answer 3

She probably is very young.  As far as breeding goes, most birds will not lay without a nest box.  Also if the cere (the little part on the beak with the nostrils) turns blue your she is actually a he.  Parakeets (otherwise known as budgies) will community breed -  in other words, they will breed in groups, whereas other species of parrots will not.  Also before you breed, do your research first.  A budgie will lay about 4-6 eggs per clutch.  If you do get fertile eggs, and the babies make it to fledging, (meaning when they leave the nest) do you have a way of getting rid of them? My advice would be to sell them to a pet store.  They will probably give you $3 - $7 per baby once they are fully weaned. My friend and I have raised everything from budgies on up to Macaws.  Breeding birds can be time consuming.  In order to get them tame you will need to pull the babies from the nest at about 2 - 3 weeks of age and hand feed until they are eating well on their own.  From the time you pull from the nest you will be looking at feeding every 4 hours from about 6 a.m. to about 11 p.m.  (using a syringe and a hand rearing formula designed for baby parrots.)   As the babies learn how to eat real food you will be able to spread out the feedings until eventually it is fully weaned meaning it no longer needs the hand rearing formula- which with a budgie will be around 6 weeks of age.

But like I said, before you try breeding, please do your research, breeding birds is ALOT different than breeding dogs and cats.  If you feed with a syringe the wrong way, the baby can aspirate the formula at it will die.  Everything has to be clean.  Once you pull from the nest, you need to keep your babies warm until they feather out. (baby parrots are born naked).  Also budgie babies are harder to hand feed because they are very small.  My advice is have somebody show you how to do this on larger babies.

Sorry so long, but I could go on and on.  I have made mistakes and lost my fair share of babies.

Answer 4

You obviously don't know the first thing about parakeets.  Breeding right now, no matter their ages, would be a very bad idea.  

Exactly how many birds do you have in the cage?  Exactly, how big is the cage?  If they're too crowded she is unlikely to pick anyone as a mate for breeding.  She also does sound too young to be bred.  Even if she was 18 months old, technically old enough to breed, that wouldn't make it safe for her to do so.  Just because the body allows it, doesn't it mean it should be done right away.  Would you recommend a 13 year old girl go get pregnant just because technically, she could?  

Your parakeet could become egg bound if bred too early.  That's when the egg can't come out.  It can be fatal if not treated properly.  She could end up with soft eggs from a calcium deficiency.  The chicks could die if she's not old enough to know what to do with them...so many things can go wrong.  

I would choose one that looks about her size and age and leave him the same cage as her.  Put the others in a large cage together.  Let her mature with her mate, if she so chooses him as a mate.  When her cere (above her beak) is brown and crusted over, she can be bred.  And IF you have read up on it enough by then, then go ahead and give them a nest box, see what happens.  My female parakeet got the crusted cere at 3 years old.   She and my male were fully bonded but they never chose to lay eggs.  I never gave them a nest box (she passed away 2 months ago, he's by himself now).  But what on earth would I have done with a bunch of babies?  That's also something you need to consider.