Post by dragonslayer15 on Jul 23, 2023 17:18:51 GMT
I am not new to owning Budgerigars. I adopted five budgies in 1994 when I was working for an aviary that had 65 parrots. I also adopted a two year old Cockatiel. I thought that five were too few and in the phone book was a number for another aviary just 14 miles away. I called them to ask if they had budgerigars and they said yes. They had doves, cockatiels, quail and African Greys too. I only intended on buying three or five to have an equal number of males and females. Lol, that was my intention but they were an older couple who wanted to retire from raising birds so they could travel. They were mostly breeding birds and some nice colors and a variety of patterns that as a novice I had never seen before. They knew my boss and he told them that I was great with his parrots and responsible. They said that typically they sell them for $10 to $20 each but I could have them for $5 each if I took every budgerigar including two aviaries, the nest boxes and feeders. It was more money than I had anticipated but they also needed a gardener to help them with their yard. I thought it over and took the offer and brought home 72 budgies and put them all in one large aviary.
I never got the chance to let them breed and over time they dwindled away until I only had a few in 2001. I only had a conure and my cockatiel until 2010 when I found a blue budgie in my yard. It took me three days to catch him. On the third day I set up a bottomless cage propped up by a stick with a long string attached to it and bird seed in the middle. It took three tries to catch him. Again I thought he would be a lonely guy so I put an ad on Craigslist seeking parakeets and within two weeks I got another sixteen budgies. I did not want cages everywhere so I divided our 17 foot by 7 foot enclosed front porch in half. I built a 7 x 7 x 8 foot tall aviary that has windows all around including one into the house. I did not give them nest boxes and over the years they too dwindled down to just five budgies. Such a large aviary deserved more budgies and in May of this year a friend posted on Facebook that he was looking to rehome his 11 budgies and I took the chance and traded him a day of gardening in trade.
When I introduced them to the aviary they they were stimulated by the space and the prior five months of rain we had had. A light yellow green male and his lutino mate decided to make a nest on the floor so I gave them a box. The other birds decided they wanted a box too. I took some aged fence boards and made a six foot long nest box unit with nine holes. The yellow pair immediately went into number one hole and she laid an egg. I added the first two from the temporary box and on July 4, 2023 the first one hatched and four more subsequently out of seven eggs. Box two had eight eggs yesterday and a chick hatched this morning, box four has three eggs, box five has four eggs and box nine had six eggs yesterday and a chick hatched this morning. I pick fresh grass seed heads every morning for them and they get greens and spray millet.
