Now that I've got the sad stuff out of the way, I should talk a little more about the aviary, changes I have made, what has worked and what has not worked.
Where to start? One big change was that I decided to remove all the nestboxes a few months ago. Originally, I had the back wall filled with boxes in different shapes and sizes.
I am not interested in breeding parakeets for a number of reasons, but I don't mind my birds mating and laying eggs. And with ten hens in a lovely aviary with natural light ... I don't think I could stop them from going into season if I wanted to. Instead, I offer plenty of calcium, a good diet, and I have a collection of dummy eggs, when the need arises. I figure that if the parakeets have nest boxes at least I will know where the eggs are, so I can remove them quickly. It pains me to pull eggs, but it is better than irresponsible breeding.
I am SO not ready to hand-feed.
If anyone is curious, I totally did not plan to have this gender distribution. I picked my budgies without regard for gender. In a perfect world, I would have got all boys, like I did with my finches. No eggs, no problems. But most of my budgies were quite young when I got them and I am not that great at determining genders at that age, so I decided to not worry, pick the ones that spoke to my heart and hope for the best. It worked out fine, but it still cracks me up that I got 80% girls on accident.
What are the odds?
Anyways, it should come as no surprise that my birds have demonstrated some hormonal behaviors. Excessive chewing, claiming nest boxes, laying eggs, etc.
I could write an entire novel or maybe a soap opera about all the relationship drama I have witnessed. Different birds courting each other. Nests built. Nests stolen. It has been a rollercoaster.
For example, one of the first things my finches did upon moving into the aviary was claim the biggest nest box and start making a nest together. Sterling and Jasper (both male) worked on this nest together for several days, before they were kicked out by Big Bertha, who claimed that box as her own. They moved to a different box and kept it for about a week before either abandoning it or getting scared off by parakeets. I don't know which.
Then Sterling went missing and I looked everywhere for him. Couldn't find him. Seriously thought he was dead. Then I noticed grass sticking out of a grapewood log I put on the ground to provide shelter for the button quail:
I flipped it over, and found Sterling sitting on his hidden nest, dreaming of hatching imaginary eggs.
Very strange.
Anyways, during the first summer, my older hens, Snowball, Big Bertha, June, Skye, and Johnny Girl all took turns being hormonal. They argued over favorite nestboxes, but nothing too serious. I had one or two hens in nestboxes at a time. It was pretty manageable. When winter came, the hormones died down and everyone returned to what I like to call "normal".
Until we had an unusually warm period of nice weather in the middle of January and all hell broke loose. Apparently, the budgies believed that spring had sprung and it was the perfect time to make some babies. All eight of my hens went into season simultaneously and decided that there was one (and only ONE) nestbox that was good enough to use. Cue lots of vicious parrot battles in miniature.
When I saw the chaos, I knew it was time for an intervention, so I removed the wall o' boxes. The girls were pissed, but I bought their goodwill with chew toys and millet. The territorial battles died out and peace returned to the aviary.
Recently, I've noticed a surge in chewing activity. I suspect that the girls are trying to find or carve out their own nest cavities. I'll have to keep my eyes on them. They are gifted chewers.
Check out this chew toy ... or at least, what's left of it:
And this one:
And this one:
A few days after hanging it up, it looked like this:
And then:
It looked like this:
And then:
Until the whole thing was empty, so I removed it:
One of my tasks today was installing a bunch of hooks to create a brand new shelf of chew toys to hopefully keep the girls entertained.
But I bet they would rather just eat the walls ....