Breeding Parakeets

In the middle of 2019 we had the opportunity to make a video about the breeding of Budgies or also known as Parakeet. These birds are quite easy to breed and quite fun to do.

There are about 24 Budgies in this place. They have been moved from previous breeding grounds, which at that time were about to breed other types of birds. They began to be moved in July 2019, and from that time on the breeding process began. By the way, i also need to record the sounds of these birds for my collection. :D

In July when they were first brought in, they were still trying to adapt to their new place. From my notes, this lasts for about 40 days. And maybe it's also because Nest Box is too close, so they feel uncomfortable, from the video that I recorded at that time, actually they have started to enter Nest Box... But it seems that they are still in the evaluation stage, they entered, but went out again. During that time they continued to be given varied foods and also some liquid vitamins which were mixed into their drinking water. If according to local breeders in our area, this Budgie should be given vegetables, lettuce and mung bean sprouts. And of course grains are the main feed. So they can feel comfortable and maybe immediately mating and laying eggs.

You can give them several types of seeds, here we give them a mixture of white milet seeds, red milet seeds, barley, canary seeds, mustard seeds, and a little paddy grain. You can also buy packaged and labeled foods that are sold at pet stores.

And we also give them whole wheat seeds. We do that after a few months since these birds were moved. It should be done from the beginning, because whole wheat seeds have economic value and of course the nutrition that is well known is good for livestock or pets. At first we just put the wheat seeds in their cage, but they don't want to eat them at all. I would have guessed that, because indeed whole wheat seeds are very hard. Finally we soak the wheat seeds first for 24 hours, then we flush them so that they are free from fermented foam, and then we gave this to these birds. The first time we gave this we mixed it with seeds as usual, until finally they got used to it, and finally wanted to enjoy whole wheat seeds as their daily menu. even so we still provide other seeds but in smaller amounts than before.

You can also turn this whole wheat into wheatgrass and serve it to these birds, but of course it takes quite a long time. These birds also like wheat grass ... As you can see in the following video:

We really do not know about the nutritional value from all of these foods. But in our opinion, whole wheat is the best compared to other foods we have ever given. Then sweet corn. And also lettuce. Because it does look a significant difference from their bodies and also their behavior. They are calmer and are not afraid of us. Although it could have been because they had been with us for a long time, or for other reasons, we did not know.

In short, after a few days later they began to mate, and seen the female Parakeets began to go in check existing nest boxes. At the same time, we began to put a distance between Nest Boxes so that they were not too close. And soon the female parakeets start to enter the nest boxes and look comfortable inside. Maybe one of our mistakes is to put Nest Boxes too close.

soon after, everything feels like automatic. each bird finds their partner, some birds are happy to be single, like the bird on the cover in this video. I don't know what happened to this bird, nor do I know whether this bird is male or female, it seems like this bird is not interested in finding a partner. This bird is quite unique, its colors are yellow and green highlighter, and have red eyes.

When the female parakeets lay eggs, then the male parakeets (their partners) will be at the entrance of the nest box, they guard and also be prepared to feed the female parakeets that are incubating their eggs. Currently the amount of food in the cage is still not much increased, although activity in the cage has begun to decrease because the female parakeets are in the nest box. Even so, sometimes female parakeets also come out of Nest Box to feed themselves, this sometimes happens because their partners are less alert. There are some good parakeets when it comes to mating, but not good at raising their chicks.

After incubating about 25 to 30 days, the parakeet eggs will hatch. At that time the food in the cage should be added more than usual, due to the needs of parakeet babies. It is also best to increase the number of vegetables every day, especially young sweet corn and lettuce. To me parakeet chicks look like other types of small parrot chicks. quite difficult to distinguish between parakeet chicks and lovebird chicks.

My advice for food, you should serve the type of food that is as dry as possible. If you want to serve whole wheat that has been soaked for 24 hours, it should be around 30% of the total amount of grain that will be served to them. Because wet whole wheat makes their poop even more moist. So that the conditions in Nest Box also become wetter. If a nest box has been prepared with a base that can absorb liquid, then that's better. But if a nest box is not prepared like that, it can have a bad effect if the wet poop sticks to the baby's parakeet leg, then it dries and hardens on the baby parakeet's leg. Of course this can be removed, but the method is not easy depending on how long the dirt is stuck.

And my suggestion, for more eggs to be successfully hatched, you should use a soft, tight base. So that the eggs do not easily move positions. In Indonesia, farmers generally use pineapple fiber for parrot species. And dried evergreen leaves for finches. Or you can also use a Nest box which is shaped like a half sphere at the bottom, like a pitcher used by breeders of parrot types in India.

For us, parakeets are among the easily reproduced birds. Because indeed they do not require a long time to adapt to the new environment.

While the obstacles that we experienced during our breeding parakeets are from other animals, such as rats. The cage must be well prepared so that the rat does not enter the cage. Then ants, this is indeed quite unexpected. Parakeets newly hatched babies are surrounded by fire-ants. The solution to this problem, we sprinkled anti-insect powder around the parakeet nest box.

Quite a lot of stories we experienced when breeding these parakeets. if you want to chat more about our story, please contact us through social media Twitter, Instagram or Facebook.