DonnaBudgie
Well-known member
My beloved favorite, best budgie, my girl Rocky, has done what I have hoped she wouldn't but kinda knew she eventually would- she laid her first egg! I found it when I changed their cage paper this morning and it fell on the floor and smashed. Her vent is puffy and sore looking but otherwise she's fine, flying around the room like usual.
Rocky is the first budgie I hand raised from an egg 2.5 years ago when her mother couldn't take care of her eggs due to a medical problem. I put them in an incubator and one hatched, named Rocky BalBirden, because she had to be a fighter with us humans as parents! We quickly learned how to hand raise newly hatched baby budgies and Rocky grew up to be very special - beautiful, super smart, sensitive, and very bonded to us but with a strong dominant independent streak that makes her the Alpha in my flock. We love her like a first born child.
I put Rocky with Beau Birden, my only other budgie she got along with, when his brother and bestie, Hunter Birden (Yup. Hunter and Beau Birden named after . . . ), died two years ago, and Beau adores her. He follows her everywhere, feeding and grooming her, and tolerating her moods as any faithful manservant should. Rocky has been very hormonal for the past six months and when they started mating I just tried to ignore it because you can't hardly stop them. Her poops have been big and bulky for months and she postures like the hot hen she is. I'm actually surprised it took this long for the first egg to appear.
I refuse to give them a nestbox because I know that once they start, they don't stop with one clutch. They will breed until exhausted and I can't let that happen to my Rocky. It's tempting to take an egg or two and raise them myself because Rocky and Beau would have beautiful babies but it's a huge time commitment, I don't need any more budgies, and could never rehome Rocky's children.
I expect another egg in a couple days but I'll just remove it quickly. Budgies normally don't start incubating full time until three eggs are laid over a one week period. If eggs are laid from a perch and fall to the cage floor it doesn't seem to upset the hen to remove them. It's harder on her to try to remove them after she's begun brooding but subbing dummy eggs is okay. If I try to separate them in different cages Beau would go crazy, plus they free fly together in the room all day and I don't have enough rooms in my very small house to separate them. As it is I have budgies on my enclosed adjacent porch, in my living room, and one promiscuous young lady, Joey, in my bedroom to keep her away from the boys. Plus poor disabled Mariah living for now in a plastic storage bin. I guess I'm just going to have to hope Rocky runs through this laying cycle and things go back to "normal". She's young, strong, healthy and physically fit so I'm not too worried about egg binding but I'll keep a close eye on her. Just last night we were talking about how much we love Rocky and how upset we would be to lose her. My husband would be particularly devastated.
Other people have mixed sex small flocks of budgies without constantly having to prevent breeding or to deal with sexual aggression. Why me? Why can't my budgies just enjoy being budgies without trying to make more?
Here's Rocky and Beau. You can't tell from this picture but Rocky, a violet opaline, is quite a bit larger and heavier than Beau because she's half English. Beau is a small opaline sky blue pied of some sort with pure white wings and tail. He's six years old but still looks like a pretty little baby because he never lost his baby eyes. He was handraised by someone else and is the sweetest budgie ever- very friendly, agreeable, never bites (Rocky does) and never gives birditude. He really is the perfect budgie everyone wishes they had.
I really hope my happy family of budgies isn't messed up too much by this turn of events. It's a lot of work keeping all my budgies happy, healthy, safe, and mostly cage free and conflict free without breeding like flying rabbits.
Rocky is the first budgie I hand raised from an egg 2.5 years ago when her mother couldn't take care of her eggs due to a medical problem. I put them in an incubator and one hatched, named Rocky BalBirden, because she had to be a fighter with us humans as parents! We quickly learned how to hand raise newly hatched baby budgies and Rocky grew up to be very special - beautiful, super smart, sensitive, and very bonded to us but with a strong dominant independent streak that makes her the Alpha in my flock. We love her like a first born child.
I put Rocky with Beau Birden, my only other budgie she got along with, when his brother and bestie, Hunter Birden (Yup. Hunter and Beau Birden named after . . . ), died two years ago, and Beau adores her. He follows her everywhere, feeding and grooming her, and tolerating her moods as any faithful manservant should. Rocky has been very hormonal for the past six months and when they started mating I just tried to ignore it because you can't hardly stop them. Her poops have been big and bulky for months and she postures like the hot hen she is. I'm actually surprised it took this long for the first egg to appear.
I refuse to give them a nestbox because I know that once they start, they don't stop with one clutch. They will breed until exhausted and I can't let that happen to my Rocky. It's tempting to take an egg or two and raise them myself because Rocky and Beau would have beautiful babies but it's a huge time commitment, I don't need any more budgies, and could never rehome Rocky's children.
I expect another egg in a couple days but I'll just remove it quickly. Budgies normally don't start incubating full time until three eggs are laid over a one week period. If eggs are laid from a perch and fall to the cage floor it doesn't seem to upset the hen to remove them. It's harder on her to try to remove them after she's begun brooding but subbing dummy eggs is okay. If I try to separate them in different cages Beau would go crazy, plus they free fly together in the room all day and I don't have enough rooms in my very small house to separate them. As it is I have budgies on my enclosed adjacent porch, in my living room, and one promiscuous young lady, Joey, in my bedroom to keep her away from the boys. Plus poor disabled Mariah living for now in a plastic storage bin. I guess I'm just going to have to hope Rocky runs through this laying cycle and things go back to "normal". She's young, strong, healthy and physically fit so I'm not too worried about egg binding but I'll keep a close eye on her. Just last night we were talking about how much we love Rocky and how upset we would be to lose her. My husband would be particularly devastated.
Other people have mixed sex small flocks of budgies without constantly having to prevent breeding or to deal with sexual aggression. Why me? Why can't my budgies just enjoy being budgies without trying to make more?
Here's Rocky and Beau. You can't tell from this picture but Rocky, a violet opaline, is quite a bit larger and heavier than Beau because she's half English. Beau is a small opaline sky blue pied of some sort with pure white wings and tail. He's six years old but still looks like a pretty little baby because he never lost his baby eyes. He was handraised by someone else and is the sweetest budgie ever- very friendly, agreeable, never bites (Rocky does) and never gives birditude. He really is the perfect budgie everyone wishes they had.
I really hope my happy family of budgies isn't messed up too much by this turn of events. It's a lot of work keeping all my budgies happy, healthy, safe, and mostly cage free and conflict free without breeding like flying rabbits.
