Male Parakeet taking multiple mates

My wife and I have a colony of 5 males, 4 females, and 2 unknown from the last clutch. We have two hens sitting right now, one has 4 hatchlings with two eggs left, the other has one hatchling and 3 eggs remaining. One male fathered both clutches, he was seen mating with both hens, even mating with both on the same day. He was spotted a few days ago mating with a third hen.

Everything I have read says that this just doesn't happen, once a pair has bonded they are supposed to be monogamous. Has anyone else run into this? I'm curious how uncommon this actually is?

Alterego

I know how he feels!

I hope some budgie experts chime in, because I have no idea about the normalcy of this.
BUTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT... I can tell you that your boy is my Rb's IDOL!

Um, NO, lol, they certainly are NOT monogamous!!! Huge breeding operations, like the kind that sell their baby Budgies to the big pet shops, have massive breeding warehouses where they set-up tons and tons of nest-boxes along the top of the walls, and they have hundreds and hundreds of females, and half as many males...And you can actually watch videos of the male Budgies just going from nest-box to nest-box...So what is happening with your Budgies is completely normal...HOWEVER...

What you are doing is called "Community Breeding", and I highly suggest that you stop it after these clutches, because inevitably when you community-breed, not only are you bound to have a ton of inbreeding happening with Budgies, but also you are almost assured to come home to a complete bloody massacre one day, where your loving, friendly "colony" of Budgies suddenly started attacking each other, usually a female will try to get into another female's nest-box, and you find both females dead, multiple chicks dead with their heads decapitated, limbs all over the place, they'll be ripped-open and all over the cage, and it's just awful...This eventually happens to EVERYONE who decides to practice Community-Breeding of Budgies...And I speak from experience, as I was born into a Budgie-breeding family, and bred both American and English Budgies for over 20 years...No matter how well they get along or how peaceful your Budgies are right now, it doesn't matter...

And just to answer this question ahead of time, yes, this does occasionally happen with Budgies in the wild, but not nearly as often as in captivity, because in the wild they aren't confined to one cage with multiple nest-boxes, their nests are in entirely different areas for the males to go around and do their thing...Inside one single cage with multiple nest-boxes, especially with one male being the father of multiple clutches, the females go crazy with territoriality and jealousy, and one female will inevitably try to get into another female's nest-box to kill her chicks, and they will literally battle until one or both are dead, and usually the chicks get completely ripped-apart in the process...

It's awful, and you don't want to look inside of their cage to find it one day...Community-Breeding in captivity is a really BAD idea.

Ellen's post really makes sense to me...
The inbreeding and other potential disasters scared me straight alright.
I can see how things would get out of control really fast!

I agree with what Ellen said, especially about inbreeding. You want to be very careful with just letting your flock have babies and babies and babies, as these babies grow up quick and then you have brothers mating with sisters, fathers to daughters, and it will get messy (and sad) very quickly. Genetic problems, deformities and death is what happens when you let your flock run rampant and lets bids mate with whoever they want.

Be a responsible owner by limiting inbreeding by getting rid of the community breeding you have going on and keep males together and females all together, or you will have lots of inbred babies!

LOL, no a lot of male birds will have sex with who-ever is willing (as are a lot of females of many different species).

Actually "pairs" (monagamous ones) are extremely rare!

And animals have no 'sense of incest'- so everybody will just make babies with everyone else...

The reason we usually refer to "a breeding pair" it is because they were set apart by the human to produce offspring in a more desirable colour or ... to prevent accidental inbreeding. In most cases it is *not* the bird who has a say in this.
They literally get "paired up". (Locked away together.)
And for some realy good (and sometimes bad) reasons.

I just wanted to add that I once allowed a community-breeding situation happen insede of a hue aviary with Budgies, and I came home to two dead females and multiple dead babies, most were just ripped apart...And we just had a new Budgie owner who wanted to let his Budgies be "a family" and allowed community-breeding, and he came home to a decapitated chick and he was so devastated that he hasn't been back here lately, that just happened a few weeks ago...So it's bound to happen...

Alterego said:

Everything I have read says that this just doesn't happen, once a pair has bonded they are supposed to be monogamous. Has anyone else run into this? I'm curious how uncommon this actually is?

Alterego

Click to expand...

This is so not true, males have will have sex with multiple female/hen, even different species and inbreeding at some point will occur? Which is same clutch brother and sister, or father having sex with each other. That why we have what we call "breeding pair", or "proven pair"."A female and male that from a separate clutch and different parents". You have to separate them before you have inbreeding issues down the road? Which is a male and female having sex with the same clutch, or different clutch, but same father. As the babies then get mature and father, or bother, or sister start having sex with each other. You don't want this as they could have health issues, or parents will kill the chick as they detect a issue with the chick. Then it can get pretty nasty and fights break out. Females get territorial and jealous as they see the male cheating and one female and will likely inevitably try to get into another female's nest-box to kill her chicks and vice a versa. Then the Community breaks down.

With my Cockatiels I will separate them once I see a pair mating and put the pair in a different cage. If I know they are from the same clutch I will trade the bother, or sister away to a breeder I am friends with, or re-home them to someone looking for a cockatiel at the time to avoid inbreeding down the road. Then the other thing people overlook when housing in same cage. Never have more males to a female. Balance it out, or separate one of the males. They will fight and try to kill each other as well.

Yes some breeders will allow a inbreeding pair, but as they want a desirable trait, or color and is controlled and then that pair is separated. Its a whole another topic I won't get into. Then you have to watch for aggression with the pair and other issues. That why breeding, or just allowing your birds to breed is not as easy as people think it is and usually ends up being very expensive as separate cages, supplies and food as different diet and can be heart breaking, not worth it, unless you know exactly what you are doing, or breeding professionally.