Nest boxes for budgies

Building nest boxes for budgies is not common, as there are many commercially available nest boxes, such as a small wicker nest, a covered nest and a wooden box nest.

How to Build Nest Boxes for Budgies -- powered by ehow

When are budgies ready to breed? (2)

When budgies are older than one year, it is considered safe for them to become parents. Apart from knowing their age, you should also keep a close eye on their health.

Food regurgitation is a part of the mating ritual among budgerigars. Image © allaboutbudgies.com

In order to have a successful first nest, both the father and the mother bird need to be in tip top health. You have to make sure that there are none of the most common signs of illness:

• sitting puffed up continually
• discharge present on feathers above nostrils
• lethargy, quietness, listlessness
• vomiting or diarrhoea
• inability to balance
• accumulated poop on vent feathers
• itching all over, scaly face or legs; this may indicate mites

Female budgie in breeding condition. Photo © the Talk Budgies forum

If you're not completely sure, you can still take the birds to your vet to get a checkup.When both of your budgies are perfectly healthy, the breeding conditions are already favourable. There also has to be a strong bond between both budgies (not all budgies like each other!). Last but not least, you can sometimes tell from your budgies' ceres when they are in breeding condition. Females will mostly have a dark brown cere (or turning brown) while the males will have an even to deep blue cere.

When are budgies ready to breed? (1)

You might be curious about this if you have a couple of budgies yourself. In fact, there is more than one way to tell when your budgies are mentally en physically ready to breed.

Young parents

I'll start off with the most obvious one: age. You must know how old your birds are before you put a nesting box in the cage. Even though budgies are physically ready to breed by the age of 6 months, they are simply too young to rear offspring. Six months for a budgie equals about 13 years in human age, these budgies are too young and not mentally ready to be parents. In the worst case, the mother could eat the eggs, abandon the nest too early or attack the hatchlings. So you can already see, there are some things to be considered first, before you put a nesting box on the shopping list.

Photo © Milan on My Opera

So when are they ready?

The youngest that most budgie breeders accept as safe is a full year. Many feel that 18 months is even better. It's better to give your birds all the time they need before they start on a nest.

What if I give them too much time?

You also might want to know if your budgies are too old to breed. Female budgies mostly breed when they are between 1 - 3 years old. When it comes to male budgies, this can be extended to six years.

Budgie Body Language (6)

Are my budgies fighting?

Image ©​ budgerigars.co.uk

Budgies rarely fight. What you see here, is a clear signal from the male budgie on the right, that he is ready to mate. The female budgie on the other hand, is not ready yet. She doesn't lower her head. Instead, she objects and pulls her head away from him. The male budgie will have to be a little more patient.

Note: if you wish to have baby budgies, you have to get a good nest box. Budgies are among the few birds in Australia that lay their eggs in cavities and hollow tree trunks.

Previous posts in this series:
Body Language of a sleeping budgie
Body Language of a preening budgie (Budgie Body Language 1)
Budgie Body Language (2)
Budgie Body Language (3)
Budgie Body Language (4)  
Budgie Body Language (5)

Opposites do not attract

Photo © www.welli.net

I found an interesting article online about mate choice among budgerigars. After reading this, it became clear that budgies often choose a mate that they can relate to. Just think of when you fall in love with someone, and suddenly he or she tells you about the great concert of last week. It happens to be your favourite band too! You admire the person even more. Having something in common like this, creates a bond. This is exactly the way it goes with budgies - although it's just one factor in the mate choice - they want a mate to share their song with - the song of their life.

Opposites do not attract

"Research conducted recently at University of California has revealed that female budgerigars choose a mate whose contact calls closely resemble their own. Males, in turn, also pay more attention to similarly-sounding mates than to females whose calls differ from theirs, grooming them often and defending them vigorously. When paired with such females, male budgerigars also devote substantially more time to the care of their young. This extra care translates into an increased rate of growth and survival for the nestlings."

 We sing the same song
 
"It has long been known that male budgerigars imitate the calls of their mates, and that doing so seems to strengthen the bond between the pair. Budgerigars have highly variable contact calls, more so than many other parrots. This may help the pair to maintain contact and to thwart competition within the huge flocks that parakeets typically form. The current research is the first to show that female mate choice is influenced by the initial sound of the male’s contact call, before he has begun to imitate her sounds.
Although budgerigars breed readily for pet keepers, this information may have important implications for hobbyists and zoos working with rare parrots that do not reproduce reliably in captivity."

Article information © thatbirdblog/thatpetplace.com

Australia: Homeland of Budgies (4)

In the wild, budgies build their nests in cavities and hollow tree trunks. They do this because the closed-in space makes them feel safe.
Domesticated budgies will also feel safer if you help them make a nest instead of giving them nest boxes.

Wild budgies prefer the branches and trunks of Eucalyptus trees to build their nests in. In these Eucalyptus trees, there are cavities in various sizes. The budgies will pick out the small cavities and make it their home, while larger birds like cockatiels will occupy the larger cavities.


This budgie is already excited to become a dad!

To find the perfect nesting areas, they have to find water. They aren't always lucky - sometimes their feeding grounds are 50 km away from the nesting areas.
The ideal place is of course a river bank: there's bound to be food and water around!

A creek is also a dream-home for a budgie: creeks are small streams, often shallow so the budgerigars can easily drink from it. And they love bathing! On top of that, it's probably bursting with food supplies during and after the rain season.

After the rain has come, budgies finally get ready to start a family of their own. They have to take advantage of the sudden big food supply, while it still lasts. The Australian Outback is known to be very hot and very dry and it often gives the budgies a hard time.
Each pair of budgies looks for a nice-looking little cavity in a hollow tree or log. The mother budgie lays four to six eggs and has to keep them warm for nearly three weeks.

In case the breeding cavity is too small, the female budgie can make more room with aid of her beak. Female budgies indeed have a harder bite than male budgies, because evolution made their jaw muscles stronger. So beware!

Father budgie isn't allowed to take a good look at the nest yet; his only task consists of bringing food to his mate and guarding the territory.
Once the baby budgies hatch, they're completely helpless, and remain that way for the next three weeks. When they start growing feathers, the father is allowed into the nest and helps to take care of his babies, so mother budgie can have a break every now and again.
Just a few weeks later, and the baby budgies are ready to spread their wings and join the big flock in their adventure of life. If the conditions are right - if there's still enough food and water around - Mom and Dad might start a new family right away.

The fact that budgies are colonial birds is yet another survival technique. When times are good, you can often see budgie couples bring up their babies at the same time, in the same eucalyptus trees. Nesting in colonies, as it's called, is an effective way to guarantee a maximum safety for each flock member. Many birds have a lot of eyes, and they're constantly watching the nesting grounds and the area surrounding it.

Budgies have different dialects that differ from flock to flock, but they will always understand each other when it comes to surviving. It is a certainty that budgerigars have a unified language, wherever they may come from. Otherwise they wouldn't be able to warn each other in case of danger. It goes as far as that budgies can even communicate certain information to other conspecifics (birds belonging to the same species). When there is danger, everyone needs to know.

Information and images (c) www.nwf.org; www.birdsonline.de; emucreekstation.com; kilcowerastation.wordpress.com; flickr.com

Eggs

Photo: http://babahogs.blogspot.com/2009/04/budgie-breeding_30.html

To take a short break from the colour schemes, I will give you some other budgie facts:

The female budgie lays her eggs one at a time and this happens during a period of one to two days. The number of eggs varies between four and eight!
The first egg will generally hatch after eighteen days, and each chick will hatch in the order the eggs were laid. During the first few days, the mother budgie will spend all her time sitting on her baby budgies to keep them warm.

Nest boxes

Unlike other birds, budgies prefer nesting in a hole in a tree to building the nest themselves.
That's doesn't mean they're lazy - it's in fact really clever. Wild budgies breed during the rainfall in Australia, and without their "little cave" in the tree, they would get really cold and wet...

photo: pittwateranimalhospital.com.au

The budgies you keep at home will be satisfied with a wooden nest box, preferably a long horizontal model.