Parakeet Breeding

Hello all!!!!! I am kinda new to this forum, and I need your advice on breeding! My friend wants to breed parakeets and so do I! I just know that my parents will not approve of this so can I help me convince them?! The main problems are noise and they don't want babies in the house!! I wanted a green cheek conure and they said that if I save the money I can get one. But now I want to breed budgies and maybe lovebirds eventually! I will breed green cheeks when I am older though. I have my bird out right now! I haven't asked them yet but I am sure they will say no!!! I get straight As so that is not a problem. Also any advice and HOW to breed them will be appreciated! Gonna do my research now bye!!

Breeding ANY type of bird is hard work. How old are you ? Because , if you do hand feed the babys , you will have to wake up at different times in the day, some while you are at school, and some in the middle of the night. The parants and baby's will need someone constantly looking over them. Is anybody in your house has breeding experience ? The parants , especially the female will need lots of calcium. It will avoid the chances of egg binding. Although rare, sometimes the parants can go cannibalistic on the baby's, or refuse to feed them. You need to check their crops and and make sure they are being fed. If not, you must start hand feeding. Hand feeding is risky work, even in captivity , chicks can still die in inappropriate conditions of the formula. I would reccomend zupreem. I can't give you exact step by step instructions, but I can give you the things to aware of. I'm 11 , the way I convinced my mom, was that you have to show them that you will take good care of the, you need to have the exact map out of what their life will be. Give them hard facts, and show them how much research you are doing

haha very weird!! I am 10, almost 11 and I don't intend to hand feed. Will it be ok if I handle them every day for 10 minutes at least? At my school they don't let you go home in the middle of the day and no one is home so that's why. I would have my grandma but she is in Florida every winter and has no experience with birds whatsoever. My dad said that maybe but no promises, cuz my mom doesn't persuade easily!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I will sell them, but ONLY if they go to a good home they MUST visit first, so I know they aren't lying. I will ask them questions that I know and if they know most of them, they've got a bird!!!!!!!!! NO one has any breeding experience, unfortunatly.

Here is the thing: during school I can't hand feed if the parents reject them. At the beginning and end of the day most likely. Would the parents learn this and feed them when I'm not there ( I've read that they need 10 hrs to empty their crops and figured they could do that at night) would this be a problem? Any way to prevent the parents from rejecting that is my biggest worry cuz my parakeet I have right now is over a yr old cuz I can tell the sex. I would give her a mix of fruits and veggies in the morning and regular diet and take the mix out before I go to bed and put it in the fridge before I go to bed and put it in at like 6:00 or something.

Breeding any animal is not just a hobby to be taken lightly. You cannot do this haphazardly. These are living things making more living things. And YOU are responsible for their care, and their lives. The world is already too full of creatures that were irresponsibly bred.

I think you should start this during summer vacation so you have 2 months . If you cant hand feed you should reconsider breeding. Anything can happen to the parants. Sometimes the hen dies from exhaustion , or the father rejects feeding them. I would do a full month of research, you have to be a 100 percent sure you are capable of handling any situation ,

Please think carefully, do you really want to introduce more birds just "to breed" when there are already so many in need of homes? Many people consider budgies a throw away pet(just HORRIBLE), people release them, destroy them, leave them alone in a cage don't bother to train them.

I highly recommend you and your friends do not breed, at least not until you are older. Make a list of all the reasons why you want to breed, and circle every reason that is why you want to breed for your birds benefit. And mark all the reasons that are only for yourself.

One of my Eclectus hens has 7 week old chicks in the nest. She is still feeding them many times a day and will be feeding them for another couple months. This pictures shows how tiny they were when they were 2 days old. If she did not feed her babies I would have had to feed them or they would have died. That is a huge responsibility.

Brand new babies have such tiny crops they can hold just a very little bit of food at a time. This means they need to be fed every hour and 1/2 to 2 hours! All around the clock! I am an experienced parrot owner but that does not mean I am an experienced hand feeder. I do not want to feed babies because I think the parents can do a better job. And I certainly do not want to feed brand new babies. But, could I let a baby die if the mother hen did not feed it? No! I'm sure you could not either.

Don't put yourself in that position until you have lots of experience caring for more than one budgie and until you know you are capable of caring for a newly hatched chick around the clock for weeks and weeks. Even during the summer when you aren't in school, you would have to be home all the time to be sure the chicks were being fed. No swimming, no sports, no movies until they are several weeks old.

lots of smart advice in this thread!

I agree, sorry, I was going to state this but I knew you just wanted answers, but you can't just breed birds because you just want to do it. The parants lives are at stake. What would you do with the hatchlings ? You should wait until you are older. Also, you can't just breed ANY random bird together. Usually you are supposed to do it by the best model of the species. Bad breeding can put health problems in the offspring

I personally just think you're too young, and it's WAY too much responsibility.

I've never bred birds (or any animals for that matter) but from what I've read, and what everyone is saying here, it's a lot of work. And I just don't know if a 10 or 11 year old kid could handle that. I'm not trying to put you down, I'm just saying realistically I think it's more than you can handle. Taking care of pets is a big responsibility as it is, but when there are baby animals, that's a whole different story.