Nest boxes

[TheOddFlock]

I plan on breeding my budgies sometime. I've done as much research as possible, and I'm mentally prepared for baby deaths, and ready to take Opal to the vet if egg binding occurres, and bring the babies to a vet when needed.
But I'm not sure about a nest box.
Can I make one out of a shoe box that's big enough? Or do I have to go and get a wooden one?
I would like to spend as little money as possible so I have enough for vet visits.

 

[Calpurnia]

You should get a real nest box. A big component of breeding is spending money and getting little back in return. BTW I know you are preparing for unexpected vet visits but have you taken both potential breeders for a wellness exam? Have both birds been eating a good diet for the last few months (ideally at least a year) so that they are in good condition?

 

[JLcribber]

I plan on breeding my budgies sometime.

Why do you want to breed them? More importantly what are the plans for all these babies you're going to make?

 

[TheOddFlock]

You should get a real nest box. A big component of breeding is spending money and getting little back in return. BTW I know you are preparing for unexpected vet visits but have you taken both potential breeders for a wellness exam? Have both birds been eating a good diet for the last few months (ideally at least a year) so that they are in good condition?

Both birds where in last week. They have a clean bill of health.
I think they have a good diet. They eat carrots every morning, seeds the rest of the day, they get a hard boiled egg once a week (should they have more?), they use their cuttlebone and mineral block, and they get apple slices as treats.

 

[TheOddFlock]

Why do you want to breed them? More importantly what are the plans for all these babies you're going to make?

I want to breed them for the experience, and I think it will help me prepare for vet school. The more things I'm exposed to now, the better. And hand feeding any rejected babies will help prepare me for parenthood.
My great grandparents use to breed lovebirds, they always told me about how much responsibility it was, but it was worth it. I want to kinda follow in their footsteps, but with budgies instead of lovebirds.

I'm home schooled so I have the time to spend with the birds.
I haven't got far enough as to know what I'm going to do with the babies, maybe sell them to pet store or give them to a rescue.

 

[Anfsurfer]

I want you to know, I'm not bashing you. I appreciate that you're looking for answers, instead of just doing things. But in all honesty, if you have to ask the question whether you can use a shoebox, you haven't done enough research. I would find a reputable breeder near you, and meet up with them and see/learn first hand. A reputable breeder will be proud to teach you about what makes a quality bird, and how to go about setting up a pair. Ask if they can be your mentor/point of contact in emergencies. So many times I've seen people who just breed, and then they come here begging for answers on what to do when things go wrong. As someone without experience, you have to have a local network! I was there once, and setting up that network saved two of my baby birds lives.

As far as the nestbox, humidity is a huge factor with the eggs. The hen regulates humidity if needed by bathing in water and returning to the box. Where I live her in Utah, it's very dry! And I've had to mist my boxes twice a day to get the eggs where they could hatch. The hen couldn't even accomplish this naturally because of how dry it is here. The wood helps with the humidity retention. Plus, a shoe box could become moldy and fall apart. You have to remember, there's going to be a clutch of babies pooping nonstop in there for many weeks. That poop mixes with the bedding and forms a firm surface for the babies to develop their legs on. You can't clean the box until the babies are walking because loose bedding will move away when they try to stand, and the babies will develop splayed legs.

My advice, find a good local breeder and learn first hand in your area...and see if they can be your local emergency contact.

 

[Anfsurfer]

FYI - Rescues save unwanted existing animals from being euthanized. They're not looking for someone who's breeding recklessly to dump their babies on them.

That is another lesson that can be learned from someone locally...whether there is even a market in you area for the bird you're breeding. You have to be able to find homes for the babies.

 

[TheOddFlock]

I want you to know, I'm not bashing you. I appreciate that you're looking for answers, instead of just doing things. But in all honesty, if you have to ask the question whether you can use a shoebox, you haven't done enough research. I would find a reputable breeder near you, and meet up with them and see/learn first hand. A reputable breeder will be proud to teach you about what makes a quality bird, and how to go about setting up a pair. Ask if they can be your mentor/point of contact in emergencies. So many times I've seen people who just breed, and then they come here begging for answers on what to do when things go wrong. As someone without experience, you have to have a local network! I was there once, and setting up that network saved two of my baby birds lives.

As far as the nestbox, humidity is a huge factor with the eggs. The hen regulates humidity if needed by bathing in water and returning to the box. Where I live her in Utah, it's very dry! And I've had to mist my boxes twice a day to get the eggs where they could hatch. The hen couldn't even accomplish this naturally because of how dry it is here. The wood helps with the humidity retention. Plus, a shoe box could become moldy and fall apart. You have to remember, there's going to be a clutch of babies pooping nonstop in there for many weeks. That poop mixes with the bedding and forms a firm surface for the babies to develop their legs on. You can't clean the box until the babies are walking because loose bedding will move away when they try to stand, and the babies will develop splayed legs.

My advice, find a good local breeder and learn first hand in your area...and see if they can be your local emergency contact.

Ok, thanks. I'll check around for local breeders. I know of a family owned pet store that breeds their own birds (The breeding birds are visible to the public), they gave me some advise on breeding, but not much. I'll check the web, look for local breeders. Thanks again for the advise.

 

[Calpurnia]

I agree with @Anfsurfer.

It concerns me that you have not yet thought about what you will do with the babies. You make it sound like you are simply interested in learning a skill at the potential harm of an innocent, living creature. So many hobby breeders looking to "experience the miracle of life" dump their birds on Craigslist or whatever and end up contributing to the overpopulation of cheap, "easy" to breed birds like budgies and tiels. These birds are the perfect target for impulsive buyers and most likely end up in crappy homes. BTW are you sure your two birds are not potentially related?

A huge component of ethical breeding is willing to be there to take in an care for any birds that you can't sell to good homes, as well as setting up high quality pairs if there is even a market for these birds in your area.

Honestly, I don't think your motivations for breeding are very good, especially since you are still in high school? My best friend from college is now in vet school and considering I was almost pre-vet myself I do understand what kinds of things these schools are looking for. Personal breeding experience is NOT one of them. A vet school wants to see you working in real clinics, or volunteering for larger institutions like zoos (basically where you can be mentored by a professional).

Finally, I did want to add that you're bird's diet is okay, but could definitely be better. A budgie hen we had when I was younger passed from egg-binding on a similar diet (of mostly seed and a little veggies). A good diet will be mostly pellets and lots of fresh foods (dark leafy greens, and dark red/orange veggies mostly), with some high quality seed (sprouted is best). Again, please consider if breeding is really something you should be doing right now. And if you can't help yourself, then at least make sure you have some guidance in real life, as well as healthy birds, and homes prepared for the babies.

 

[TheOddFlock]

I talked with some friends, they said they'll take a budgie or two. So now I have something to do with them. My birds are not related, and i'm going to get them on a better diet before breeding.

 

[JLcribber]

I talked with some friends, they said they'll take a budgie or two. So now I have something to do with them. My birds are not related, and i'm going to get them on a better diet before breeding.

So that's one or two spoken for. What about next season? And the season after that? And the season after that?

I haven't got far enough as to know what I'm going to do with the babies, maybe sell them to pet store or give them to a rescue.

I figured as much. You are becoming part of the problem instead of part of the solution. If you want "valuable" experience towards being a vet, go and find a rescue that is full of unwanted birds and spend the day there. Just one day. That is the future you are looking at.

 

[karen256]

I think learning to handfeed and care for babies can be a valuable skill for a vet to learn. And the budgie 'overpopulation' problem is rather overstated - yes, there are too many budgie bred by mills to supply pet stores with cheap budgies that are often not very healthy and hard to tame - but there is a real shortage of good breeders who handle and socialize the babies so they can be easily tamed to become wonderful pets. I'm always seeing people looking for young, tamable budgies in my local craigslist and it seems like a lot of people here also have been forced to get pet store budgies after they couldn't find any breeders.
Certainly there are many budgies in rescues, but these tend to be the pet store mill bred budgies that people could not tame.

That said, breeding does entail a lot of responsibility and some cost. You can buy a plywood budgie nestbox that will work just fine for only $6 or so. If that is too expensive, then should not consider breeding your budgies! A cardboard box will not work, babies poop in the box and it will quickly get disgusting and start to disintegrate.
If your budgies came from a chain pet store. it would also be best not to breed them (unless they are vet checked healthy and have really exceptional temperaments) - too many budgies from chain pet stores come from mills and may be genetically unhealthy, prone to tumors, ect.

 

[Calpurnia]

I do completely agree with you that there is a shortage of quality, hand-fed budgies. Unfortunately, what makes a good breeder a good breeder is not just the fact that they happen to raise a tame baby. The best breeders are:

• feeding their breeding birds a high-quality diet
• setting up pairs to ensure good genetic constitutions (not just to produce the rarest mutations; I'm glad you brought up a good point about pet store budgies!)
• preventing their pairs from breeding year round
• weaning the babies onto a large variety of foods
• exposing their babies to a wide variety of stimuli
• vetting and educating potential buyers as throughly as possible to ensure their babies find good homes (not just dumping them on the first two friends that come along with a passing interest in birds)

These are the kinds of breeders we should be encouraging, or the standards that we should be impressing on potentially new breeders. If the OP is willing to step up to the plate and have these kinds of standards then I'm willing to be less critical. But if they are just going to produce babies with no real care as to where the babies end up, whether the birds they are breeding SHOULD be breeding, or whether they have the skills (learned from a mentor) to recognize problems that may crop up then I can't just say "sounds like a great idea, go ahead!".

In a situation like this I feel like the best option for a person "wanting the experience" would be to reach out to an established breeder and try to do the hands on work with them or with their birds.

 

[Laurie]

Honestly, I really am never sure what to say to a post like this. So I have two words: Quality and Education.

If there are to be pet birds then we need quality birds. By quality, I mean a bird who will make a good pet. That starts with the parents. I mean known quality, not guessing. You can not get known quality from a pet store. You usually need to get that from a breeder. With budgies you are breeding color mutations and to do that properly you need to understand what mutations your birds are, what colors it will produce and the proper pairing of the birds. There are books, and books and books on it. Check a library if you don't want to buy one.

Then you need a breeder who tracks lineage and bands babies. A good breeder should be able to give you a sort of pedigree or lineage for your birds. You need unrelated birds or at least birds who not closely related. You mentioned, that you know your birds are unrelated, how? Parents need to be healthy and well tempered as pets. Quality housing, nestbox, food, if you are handfeeding you need the right equipment too. Quality in Quality out.

Education. Education for you, lots and lots of it. Books and real sources, not internet hearsay. Mentors and excellent breeders. Learn everything that you can about birds. Not just budgies, parrots of all kinds. Outdoor birds. Everything feeds the passion and can potentially help you.

Learn about training and weaning and socializing. What makes a good pet bird? What does an ideal environment look like?

Volunteer or mentor with someone. It can be hard to find someone but that doesn't mean you can not try. We had a good local bird shop nearby and they answered questions and let me watch them feed babies. Offer to clean cages or something in exchange for the privilege.

Finally, it is a breeders responsibility to educate the people who they sell the babies too. You can not control what they do when the babies leave but you can make sure that they know what they should be doing.

I started out with pet budgies (not breeding) when I was a little girl and as a teenager I dreamed that one day I would breed birds because I love birds and I was passionate about them. I did raise parrotlets for several years. I was grown, had my own home and I borrowed money to get started. I took it seriously. Tracked down unrelated birds and made pairs properly. I was mentored. I did research for years. Over a year before I got my birds and then continuously thereafter. It turned out to be great fun and very satisfying but had it's share of heartbreak as well.

Sadly, it is almost impossible to find good breeding stock for parrotlets anymore, they are all but lost to poor breeding practices. The bloodlines are muddy, the color lines are polluted. Parrotlets these days are up to 25% smaller and live about half as long. This is because of in discriminant breeding and it is so, so sad.

This may be over your head and it may sound like a lot but if you think about and ask the questions and educate yourself then you may well be part of the solution that will promote better quality pets and better quality care. If you care enough to do the work and be patient and set yourself and your birds up for success then you can expect to learn something and enrich the lives of others and of the birds in your care.

If you are not careful, cautious and thorough then you can expect heartache for you and the birds.

I am all for the former but have seen too much of the later.

Stick around here for a while and read, read, read. You'll learn a lot and it will broaden your perspective which is a great thing for a young person who is eager to learn

 

[Laurie]

I talked with some friends, they said they'll take a budgie or two. So now I have something to do with them. My birds are not related, and i'm going to get them on a better diet before breeding.

Go for the better diet now, breeding or not

 

[TheOddFlock]

Yes I'm working on the diet, it takes a while to get them to pellets after eating mostly seed.

I talked to a local breeder yesterday, he showed me some of his baby birds, and let me hand feed one. He told me about how to raise baby birds to be great tamed birds. I had fun while I was there talking about breeding, and thought it was really interesting. He told me how he weans his babies onto a good diet of seed, pellet, fruit and veggies. I'm going back next week, he's going to show me how to identify splayed leg, learn how much a baby needs to eat incase I end up hand feeding, and a couple other things.

I'm only planning on one clutch, I'm going to separate the two afterwards.

 

[TheOddFlock]

Also, I've been planning on hand taming the babies. I want these baby budgies to be the sweetest little things, I care about good quality pets, not mutations.
I never pay attention to coloring, I like good quality pets.

I want to spend all of my time on interacting with the baby budgies, hand feeding any rejected babies, making sure the parents and babies are properly cared for, I'm ready to dedicate my life to these birds.

But until my birds are ready, there will be no breeding. I will not encourage breeding throughout the year, only when my birds are in breeding condition.
I want these babies to be the best thing to happen (to me) since sliced bread.

 

[melissasparrots]

I talked with some friends, they said they'll take a budgie or two. So now I have something to do with them. My birds are not related, and i'm going to get them on a better diet before breeding.

But will they be a good home for them? "I'll take a budgie or two" sounds like they are doing you a favor rather than really wanting a budgie. Budgies are fairly over bred to start with. I'm not saying its wrong to breed them, but I think you need to think this out a little bit more. Finding babies a good home is a lot more difficult than you think it is. Definitely don't give them to a rescue. That would just give the rescue people another reason to complain about breeder's inability to find homes for babies and overpopulation. They are anti-breeding enough as it is. With budgies, you will have to worry about people wanting to buy a disposable bird as cheaply as possible to make their kid happy. Not likely to be a situation where the bird is given a large enough cage, good diet beyond just seed mix and probably no vet care.

To more directly answer your question, yes you can use a shoe box. Will you be consistently successful though? That is a different question. A proper budgie nest box would probably give you better results. My pair of quakers laid an egg the day after I brought them home. Not knowing if it was fertile or not, I gave them what I had which was an old cube shaped empty 24 pack pepsi box and covered it with a towel. They went to nest in it and hatched out a baby which I ended up keeping. I still have the little guy 12 or so years later.

Also, you might want to look into getting your budgies eating sprouted seeds. I find my little birds love to feed sprouts to babies and babies love to wean onto sprouts. If you go with sprouts, make sure you do it proper and don't cut corners. A well prepared sprout mix can rival pellets for good nutrition. A poorly prepared sprout mix can kill your birds. Plus, sprouted seeds and legumes are good for even maintaining healthy non-breeding birds.

 

[Peppo]

Didn't one of these budgies just get attacked by your cat to the point you thought it was dead and your family wouldn't give you a ride to the vet to help save it? Then it was dead, then in recovery for a few more weeks? I assume this is one of the birds you want to breed? Many of us read posts from multiple forums out there. A birds life is not a game and trust me, will not be better than "sliced bread" as you stated in your post.

 

[Calpurnia]

@TheOddFlock I'm glad you are going out and getting some hands on experience. Could this breeder take you on as an apprentice or employee? That way you'll get all of the experience you're looking for and not have to worry about breeding your own birds. I'm only wondering because after Peppo's comment I was curious and did check back at your old posts. When I saw this:

"My flock is a special "odd ball" flock. Come on how many people have a male cockatiel, a male budgie, a female lovebird, and a female budgie, all getting along with each other. Not many people I'm sure. Elvis is my cockatiel, he is the oldest, Chrissy is male budgie, he is Elvis's best friend, Jordan is the youngest, and has a tendency to go after toes when she doesn't get her way, Opal is the newest member, I'm not sure of her mutation. She is related to Chrissy, and because they both are of age, I'm doing my best to prevent any possible eggs. Photos are coming soon. "

I just have to ask what new information did you obtain to tell you that these birds are definitely not related?