Pictures As Promised

[Lady Jane]

@PoukieBear Here are two photos in window light of Mickey this morning. I ordered a DNA via feather kit last night. When I did this before it took quite a while to get it. I am still steaming at the breeder because he led me to believe I had two males plus he still has not responded to my communication.

 

[Lady Jane]

It is the consensus of opinions on FB budgie organization of show/breeders that Mickey is female. Of course I will not change her name and must learn to call Mickey "her".
I did not want to deal with egg laying or the results of mating between the two birds but I guess that is not to be.

 

[Lady Jane]

I must say that after leaving the message I wrote today on FB to the breeder he did respond in a good way. Said he has a 98% accuracy rate on early gender ID with budgies.
He also said if the DNA comes back female he will replace Mickey with a male bird. Mickey is my heart bird so I could never do that to her/him. I don't want 3 birds in one cage, besides the two males may fight each other over one female.

 

[Milestone]

Yeah, female.

I'm glad you want to keep her.

 

[Lady Jane]

Its not official until I get results of DNA test which I decided to do.

 

[PoukieBear]

I'm glad the breeder finally got back to you. And I would definitely say that Mikey is female.

There are ways that you can prevent her from laying eggs. When you see her cere start to change to the deep brown colour, you can reduce her dsaylight hours by covering her cage at night. You can also move her cage to a different location in the house, and change around the toys and perches in her cage. Budgies will usually only lay eggs and nest when they feel most comfortable, so changing these familiarities usually helps reduce the chances of her laying.

Do not offer anything that may be used as a nest. No tiki huts, coconut toys, or deep food dishes.

IF she does happen to lay an eggs or two, don't worry. You can always remove the eggs from her cage, there's absolutely no reason to leave them in there with her.

 

[Lady Jane]

By the many numbers of "bird people" both here and on FB I would say a DNA test is not necessary. Thanks Michelle for your insight and suggestions. So if I remove eggs right away wont she keep on laying? Members here say to let the female birds go through the process but use dummy eggs or render eggs infertile. They have never fed eachother or groomed eachother at all. Murphy is so much bigger than Mickey. Hope he does not hurt her in any way.

 

[PoukieBear]

A lot of people do let their females go through the entire process of incubating dummy eggs, and they will eventually give up on them when they don't hatch.

In my opinion this is not necessary. Sitting on eggs and being dependent on the male bird for feeding is a lot of unnecessary work for BOTH birds. If you take the eggs away as she lays them, then she won't have anything to sit on in the end. Budgies will only lay a set number of eggs, so don't worry about her laying and laying and laying just because you're taking the eggs away.

Another option is to get a second cage for Mickey when she goes into breeding condition. You can keep her separated for a month or so and this will prevent them mating as well. You can definitely keep the cages side by side though so they still have each other for company.

Make sure that there is a cuttle bone in her cage as a calcium supplement.

And don't panic. Just because you have a male and female doesn't necessary mean that they are going to mate. My Lemon Jelly and Carl have been housed together ever since they were young, (5 years now) and they have never even shown any interest in mating. They are best friends, but not lovers.