20 years!

DonnaBudgie · May 3, 2025

She has only been holding her poops since she began brooding her (fake) eggs 10 days ago. Before that she pooped inside. It's very normal for brooding females not to poop in their nest box but her cage is her nest box right now so she's doing what she's programmed to do. Once she's out of breeding/brooding mode Ivexpect her to return to normal pooping habits.

DonnaBudgie · May 4, 2025

This morning at 6am she flew to me sitting on the bed (I was prepared) and deposited this on an old towel. It was about 10 hours worth of brooding female budgie poop and I actually heard it come out! I can't wait for this to be over.

DonnaBudgie · May 4, 2025

I love my girl budgies but sometimes I wish they were all males. Females can make great pets and my very favorite budgie, Rocky, is a girl, but breeding is not something you want your companion birds to do. Laying eggs, even infertile ones, is very common and problematic and egg binding can kill them.

Its not usually a problem if you have no more than two or three budgies but having a large mixed sex group stimulates breeding behavior especially if you give them a lot of free flight time. My vet says I've created the perfect environment for a semi-captive breeding colony. I joke about what would happen if I installed nestboxes around my living room at the top of the walls- I'd have to move out and let the budgies have my house!

cfr70 · May 4, 2025

DonnaBudgie said:
I love my girl budgies but sometimes I wish they were all males. Females can make great pets and my very favorite budgie, Rocky, is a girl, but breeding is not something you want your companion birds to do. Laying eggs, even infertile ones, is very common and problematic and egg binding can kill them.

Its not usually a problem if you have no more than two or three budgies but having a large mixed sex group stimulates breeding behavior especially if you give them a lot of free flight time. My vet says I've created the perfect environment for a semi-captive breeding colony. I joke about what would happen if I installed nestboxes around my living room at the top of the walls- I'd have to move out and let the budgies have my house!

Can you try taking her eggs away to stop the breeding behavior or would that be a bad thing to do to her?

DonnaBudgie · May 4, 2025

Yes. I am planning on taking them away from Joey on Thursday. We are taking a 7 hour road trip and will remove them when we put her in her carrier. She's taken this trip several times and enjoys it. I feel kinda bad that she's been so dedicated to sitting on her fake eggs but she has two deformed feet from her parents being siblings so she can't have babies, plus the last thing I want is more budgies!

Last time I had to stop a breeding female budgie she had raised two clutches and was sitting on her third. This was, Tilly, Joey's mother.
I limited her first two clutches to two viable eggs out of eight each she laid because that's too many chicks. I subbed dummy eggs. The four chicks did great and the female I've been messaging about, Joey, was from a third egg from the second clutch that I took and incubated and raised myself. She three clutch hen begins laying another clutch while she still has three week old chicks in the box, which makes stopping the cycle more difficult.
After the last two chicks fledged and didn't go back in I took the box full of 10 dummy eggs away from her and put her in a large flight cage with three other females. I put her mate in another flight cage with 3 other makes. The two cages cannot see each other. After I moved her, she laid one more egg in the cage and stopped. Thank God! So, they DO get over it pretty quickly when you take away the eggs and change their environment. She should begin doing her potties inside her cage after the eggs are gone. If not, I'll worry about it then.

Vishnu :) · May 28, 2025

Bruce is 5 years older than me! Happy Bday to you Bruce!

Vampiric_Conure · May 28, 2025

cfr70 said:
Charlie looks like Bruce only green lol. Before I became a Conure owner, I mistakenly thought that only the big Macaw parrots were long lived birds and had no idea that smaller ones like these could live over 20 or even 30+ years!
How is Charlie doing at 25 and did he adjust well after you took him in? I wonder if he missed his original owner when they passed away. I can only hope that I outlive Bruce because one of my big fears is something happening to me while i'm out and he's home all alone wondering where I am so I keep a card in my wallet alerting anyone in an emergency that he's home all alone.

Do you see signs of Charlie slowing down or is he still energetic? Bruce is free flighted and is all over the house during the day and even flies out to the patio on his own when he wants to see the outside birds. The crows out there are fascinated with him probably because of his bright coloring.
I saw a Green Cheek Conure at the vet once and fell in love with it's personality. All the other types of Conures seem to be a little more sedate and playful than the Suns. Bruce is sweet but he can be an aggressive little demon from hell when he wants to lol.

I don't beleive I missed this! Charlie's slowed down since I've had him. He doesn't even fly anymore. He barely climbs, though he's a little brat still when it comes to playing !! He just does it slower, LOL! I think he misses his former owner, but he's adjusted to me pretty good. He and Redshift live in a big cage together - Red and Charlie like each other as roommates, though they're not best friends. They'd be lost without each other, tho!

Smart, keeping a card that says you've got a bird all alone in case of an accident! I should put one in my wallet, too!