Have I done the right thing ?

[budgiemum]

Hi I am new to this forum. I have two budgies.   I have a normal blue, colbalt boy called Archie and Female dilute,  light green called Bumble Bee. Archie  is about three and Bumble Bee is about a year and half.   They eat, sleep, preen and feed each other and they both head bob and she flaps her wings at him and he sings to her and tries to feed her constantly. All good, my only concern is about two years  ago, before  Bumble Bee we had another female ( Puffle) she was a rescue bird,  as was Archie,  so we knew nothing about them. They were very close and exhibiting the same behaviour as Archie and Bumbee Bee are now but Puffle  became very unwell one day and when we took her to the vet,  she was egg bound and we lost her. They said she was very old and that Archie was quite young. We then got Bumble Bee and she was never that interested in Archie before now.  We have never had a breeding box and they live in a very large cage but now Bumble Bee is all over Archie,  I am worried they will mate and she will not feel secure enough to lay her eggs. .. So under the pet store recommendation have put in a breeding box ?  Am I doing the right thing  ? I just don't want to loose her and Archie will be devastated again.. Any advice would be helpful 

[suesbird]

If you do want them to breed then you will need a nest box and different things in her diet.  If you don't want her to breed, you need to separate them, take out everything she likes or can shred. I lost Jo 3 weeks ago who was egg bound. She was in her own cage for 3 weeks but the little so and so was determined to lay. She was five and unfortunately I couldn't see she was egg bound and lost her.

This is just my experience, some of the more experienced ones will be able to help later.

Sorry I can't help anymore.

[samwiseg]

As suesbird has said if you do want them to breed then by all means give them a nest box but if you dont, well you will need to try and sperate them and not give the hen anything where she can get comfy and lay.

It would seem that hens can get egg bound for all sorts of reasons, whether it simply be a young first timer, or too older bird or just purely because the egg is too large.

I dont know if Hezz or skysmum will be able to help any further on this?

[Hezz]

My advice - take out the nest box! Unless you are completely sure that you want to go down the breeding route, discourage anything like mating. As Bumble Bee is still a young hen, the likelihood of her becoming egg-bound is not so great, but more of a problem is her becoming a chronic egg-layer. If you don't want her to have a clutch, besides removing the nest box, you may need to cage her separately, give her nothing treat-like in the way of food, remove any toys that are favourites, re-arrange her cage furniture from what she is used to, remove her cage from the general run of the house, shorten her daylight hours. My experience is that your hen would lay her eggs anyway, regardless of having a nest to lay them in, or not.

To discourage her, put into place the moves mentioned above, putting her into a state of a mild sort of stress. Be strong and ignore her, and his, calls to be reunited. The safest thing to do is to stop any breeding ideas before they come to fruition. Remember that a hen can lay, become egg-bound or a chronic egg-layer with or without a mate. The male is quite incidental, so all your efforts need to be directed towards your hen.

[birdsandbun]

That sounds like a harsh thing to do to the hen...putting her through such stress? I am new to budgie breeding so don’t know just a comment.

[Hezz]

Nov 28, 2019 1:54:16 GMT birdsandbun said:

That sounds like a harsh thing to do to the hen...putting her through such stress? I am new to budgie breeding so don’t know just a comment.

Read the post - "a state of MILD stress". You have obviously not had a chronic layer, consider yourself lucky. A little tough love in the early stages can prevent a hen from going through possibly years of bad health or even death from egg-binding. Mild stress or possible death? Take your pick. The poster had already lost one hen to egg-binding and did not want the same thing happening again.