Breeding Pair

raj914

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Indoor CAG (Jean)
Can you keep two breeding pair with 2 separate nest box in one cage?
 

LordTriggs

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that depends on cage size, number of food and water bowls ETC ETC

Also the birds even if normally happy with the group could turn nasty and attempt to kill each other and the babies if all in one cage.

You should read up a lot more on breeding birds before getting started and make sure you have all the necessary highly expensive equipment, a Certified Avian Vet on hand willing to check over babies and have been trained in how to hand feed a bird (even if you plan on letting the parents feed them) otherwise you will end up with dead babies
 

SilverSage

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In cockatiels, sure. In conures? Do you want dead conures? No.


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raj914

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Thank you! I'm glad that I asked first since my plan was to get to pairs and keep in one cage.
 

SilverSage

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raj914

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What are the chances of breeding once you see the male regurg to the hen outside of the nest box?
 

EllenD

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This is called "Community Breeding" and it's highly advised against, and I can speak from experience that you never, ever, ever want more than one breeding pair of any species of bird in one cage with one nest box. Not ever...

I used to breed English and American Budgies, along with cockatiels and several conure species...well due to a space constraint, years ago I built a huge indoor aviary in my basement, larger than any flight cage you could possibly have, it took up half a large room...my intention was not to start my new pairs breeding inside the aviary, but they did it on their own of course, i was young and didn't know any better. So with 3 budgie breeding pairs I put in 6 nest boxes and twice as many food and water dishes, so each pair could have multiple box choices, and so each bird could have multiple food and water choices...everything was fine for a while, only 2 of the English budgie pairs laid clutches, one had 4 babies in their box and the other had 6...one morning I went to check on the babies and feed the budgies, and i can't begin to describe the horror to you...the nest box with 4 babies in it had the youngest 2 babies literally ripped apart, one was decapitated and the other ripped open...and their mother was dead on the floor underneath the box, also ripped open...in the other box, all 6 babies were fine, but the mother laid dead beside/on top of them, she was ripped open, she died defending her babies, as did the other mother, as the male who hadn't laid any clutches was covered with blood but unharmed, so he went after and killed both mothers and 2 babies, and then i was left with 8 babies and NO NESTING MOTHERS AT ALL, MEANING I HAD TO HAND RAISE THEM, AND ONE WAS ONLY 2 DAYS OLD...They all lived, but i was exhausted from feedings every 2 hours for the first 4 weeks...

So to answer your question, NO!!!! One breeding pair of birds per cage only!!!!
 

itzjbean

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Thank you EllenD for sharing your experience and insight with this. Wow, what a scene to walk into. I will remember that.
 

EllenD

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Thank you EllenD for sharing your experience and insight with this. Wow, what a scene to walk into. I will remember that.

I certainly will never forget it, it was heartbreaking to have to deal with, and most of all just so sudden and out of nowhere. So often I hear people on these forums say things when they are warned not to do something like "Well i've been doing it that way for a long time with no problems, so i'm going to keep doing it that way", and all i can think to myself is "You've been told what can and has happened, so why take the unnecessary risk?" I know a lot of people participate in community breeding, but that doesn't mean that they don't deal with situations like this all the time.

Something else to keep in-mind is that all of the large bird-mills who supply the large, big-box pet stores with baby birds (usually budgies and cockatiels) participate in community breeding, in huge, steel warehouses with hundreds if not thousands of breeding adult birds. Usually they have the walls and ceilings lined with hundreds of nest boxes, and huge bins of seed on the floor that they just come in once a day and fill-up, the same with the huge water containers. And they typically have a huge amount of female adult breeders that out-number the males at least 10:1, so the males just go from nest box to nest box, mating with multiple females over and over again, and they just keep this going for years and years, and when babies or adults die, they just sweep them up into a pile on the floor and throw them out in the garbage dumpster. It's a horrible sight, you can google "parrot-mill" and see photos and videos of it in-action, they are absolutely filthy, disgusting set-ups, where the mother birds are entirely responsible for feeding themselves and every baby in their clutches because no one male is bonded to any one female, so they typically don't help with feeding or nesting, they are just constantly going around mating. They do this because obviously all they care about is breeding as many babies as possible to sell, and they don't care how many babies or breeders die in the process...this is also why most birds are horribly inbred from these places, if they lose a female breeder they just keep a female baby to replace her, same with losing a male...it's awful.
 
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raj914

New member
Apr 17, 2018
21
Media
4
Albums
1
0
Manila
Parrots
4 Tiels
Pair of SC
Pair of IRN
Pair of Ecky
Indoor SC (Bruce)
Indoor CAG (Jean)
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This is called "Community Breeding" and it's highly advised against, and I can speak from experience that you never, ever, ever want more than one breeding pair of any species of bird in one cage with one nest box. Not ever...

I used to breed English and American Budgies, along with cockatiels and several conure species...well due to a space constraint, years ago I built a huge indoor aviary in my basement, larger than any flight cage you could possibly have, it took up half a large room...my intention was not to start my new pairs breeding inside the aviary, but they did it on their own of course, i was young and didn't know any better. So with 3 budgie breeding pairs I put in 6 nest boxes and twice as many food and water dishes, so each pair could have multiple box choices, and so each bird could have multiple food and water choices...everything was fine for a while, only 2 of the English budgie pairs laid clutches, one had 4 babies in their box and the other had 6...one morning I went to check on the babies and feed the budgies, and i can't begin to describe the horror to you...the nest box with 4 babies in it had the youngest 2 babies literally ripped apart, one was decapitated and the other ripped open...and their mother was dead on the floor underneath the box, also ripped open...in the other box, all 6 babies were fine, but the mother laid dead beside/on top of them, she was ripped open, she died defending her babies, as did the other mother, as the male who hadn't laid any clutches was covered with blood but unharmed, so he went after and killed both mothers and 2 babies, and then i was left with 8 babies and NO NESTING MOTHERS AT ALL, MEANING I HAD TO HAND RAISE THEM, AND ONE WAS ONLY 2 DAYS OLD...They all lived, but i was exhausted from feedings every 2 hours for the first 4 weeks...

So to answer your question, NO!!!! One breeding pair of birds per cage only!!!!

Thank you for sharing and I am sorry to hear what happened. My aviary is divided to 4, and I only keep one pair of SC, IRN and 2 pairs of tiels. The vacant one is for a pair of Eclectus.
 

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