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Possible To Breed Lovebirds & Budgies Together?

Tara81

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The baby looks like a budgrigar. Very cute :) I don't think lovebirds and budgrigars can reproduce.. We would have seen some evidence by now.. But then again.. No one knew cockatiels and galahs could reproduce until maybe 10 years ago? Then i've read people found out they do reproduce very rarely in the wild together as well :)
 

Birdie Mama

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Has any one seen the result of a tiel and galah? Never heard of this being possible. Wonder how healthy etc such a combination would be...interesting
 

tka

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Cockatiels and galahs are much more closely related, so can interbreed. I don't know whether their offspring would be fertile though. Budgies (Australia) and lovebirds (Africa) are unrelated and would never encounter each other in the wild.
 

Monica

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Has any one seen the result of a tiel and galah? Never heard of this being possible. Wonder how healthy etc such a combination would be...interesting
Not in person, no.... and the first one was not intentional. Key word... first.

These are the two photos I have that I have permission to share from the article. (see links in description - click on images!)


https://flic.kr/p/5ycYbv https://flic.kr/p/5yhkXW


There have been, I think, at least 5 or 6 others now? One has since died, although cause is unknown. (person didn't do a necropsy)




Overall health and fertility is unknown... that said, many of the chicks, if still alive, should be old enough to reproduce now, although I don't know if anyone has tried. To my knowledge, they have not reproduced in the wild.



If you want to see some other crazy hybrids (unfortunately, there are some not in there I wish I could share), check out the

 

Akr

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Hi your Gorgeous new addition definitely looks like a cross.
we have had baby budgies before . I also did not think it would be possible to cross breed.
you should definitely get a bird professional to check for you or you could send off a feather for DNA testing to confirm. It will be exiting to follow your little ones growth and see what happens. Either way you have a really cute little bird.
 

Zara

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@Akr Hello Alisha, this thread was created 9 years ago. You will see the dates of each post just above them :)
 
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shushi_boi

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Hello,

I do apologize for posting on this dated thread, I would however like to respond to some of the points made about the budgie and lovebirds being able to crossbreed.

When it comes to them being too far apart to being able to mate and produce offspring, this isn't a big issue inofitself as there are many distant relative animals that are distant from one another like geographic locations as well as being somewhat distant from their common ancestor, but despite this fact they are still able to crossbreed such as is in the case with goats and sheep's, as well as bisons and cows, jaguars and leopards or lions, etc.

Many times, geographic distancing is sometimes overblown since there are many reasons why related species are distant from one another, whether that's from human involvement such as trading with chickens in some areas, geography drastically changing like with ice bridges melting away from climate factors that also affects behavioral migrations, storms or great floods causing certain species to be transported further away than thought possible, especially animals that can travel great distances like the birds etc.

So I just wanted to clarify on that point. When it comes to the taxonomic and genetic relationship between budgies and love birds, one needs to point out that although budgies are quite popular and many people have them as pets, their is rather a lack of in-depth research concerning these species considering to how relatively close and domesticated they are with humans.

Having said this, their taxonomic categorizations have been changing recently, as these classifications are still somewhat arbitrary
(with examples of convergent adaptations being one of many factors making it difficult at times to properly classifying certain animals like other obscuring factors)
with no set in stone way of knowing for sure whether or not this system is completely accurate and absolute. Having said this, there are studies that are relatively recent that have pointed out that the budgies or lovebirds, despite their different appearances and geographic distribution, are more closer related to the love birds and lories and lorikeets than previously thought, here's an excerpt from this study,


Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution
Volume 36, Issue 3, September 2005, Pages 706-721
The evolution of the spindlin gene in birds: Sequence analysis of an intron of the spindlin W and Z gene reveals four major divisions of the Psittaciformes
Author links open overlay panelRolf S.de KloetSiwo R.de Kloet
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Abstract
The Psittaciformes (parrots, parakeets) are among the most widely held captive birds. Yet, their evolution and their phylogenetic relationships have been relatively little studied. This paper describes the phylogenetic relationships between a number of Psittaciformes as derived from the sequences of the third intron of the Z-chromosomal and W-chromosomal spindlin genes. The Z-chromosomal sequences of the kakapo (Strigops habroptilus), the kea (Nestor notabilis), and the kaka (Nestor meridionalis) from New Zealand form a cluster which is the sister group to all other Psittaciformes. The results show further that the Z-chromosomal sequences of the other species can be divided into two groups based on the occurrence of a sequence element ACCCT. The group with the insert (A) is mainly from species with an Australasian geographical distribution and includes such species as the Lories (Lorius, etc.), the budgerigar (Melospittacus undulatus), and the rosellas (Platycercus). It also includes the African lovebirds (Agapornidae), which are the only representative of group A outside Australasia. Group B, without the insert, includes the neotropical parrots and parakeets such as the amazons (Amazona, etc.), the macaws (Ara, etc.), and the conures (Aratinga, etc.), the Australian Cacatuini and the African species such as the African grey parrot (Psittacus erithacus) as well as Coracopsis vasa from Madagascar and Psittrichas fulgidus from New Guinea. The W-chromosomal sequence data show that another division of the Psittacidae is found in the replacement of a pyrimidine-rich segment occurring in many non-psittacines as well as the kakapo (S. habroptilus), the kea (N. notabilis), the kaka (N. meridionalis), and the Cacatuini by a microsatellite consisting of a variable number of TATTA monomers in the other Psittaciformes. The results support a Gondwanan origin of the Psittaciformes and the suggestion that paleogeographic events were a major force in psittacine divergence.
This wikipedia article on broad tail parrots sort of summarizes this paper and other studies as well in relation to the budgies,

Scientific classificatione
Platycercini
Redrumpedparrot.jpg
A pair of red-rumped parrots
Kingdom:Animalia
Phylum:Chordata
Class:Aves
Order:Psittaciformes
Family:Psittaculidae
Subfamily:Platycercinae
Tribe:Platycercini
Selby, 1836
The budgerigar was traditionally placed in this tribe ( Platycercini ) , but this inclusion is incorrect.[1][2][3][4] The closest relatives of the budgerigar are the lories and lorikeets ( and African lovebirds Agapornidae ).[1][2][3][4] The genera Neopsephotus, Neophema, and Pezoporus are placed in a separate, but closely related tribe, the Pezoporini based on the paper by Joseph et al. (2011)[5]
So the love birds do fall similarly enough in the genetic level to be part of the same tribe, more related than just the subfamily category, although it's still quite arbitrary if they deserve to be classified in the same genus category, although most related animals who are within the subfamily and genus categories are able to crossbreed physically in the genetic level, although the more distant related they are the less likely a viable fertile offspring would result, although mating behaviors as well as other physical factors will decrease the likelihood of these similar but distant related relatives to crossbreed with each other.

I apologize again for posting on an old thread, but I just wanted to clarify the scientific aspect of both the budgies and lovebirds and wanted to provide some resources related to this issue and recent studies.
 

Croaker

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here is a video of a male budgie and a female lovebird mating..
Just noticed my blue male budgie and female lovebird doing the mating thing. If one hatches, I'll be sure to post it.
 

expressmailtome

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Just noticed my blue male budgie and female lovebird doing the mating thing. If one hatches, I'll be sure to post it.
Just so that you know, that member has not logged into their account in more than eight years.
 

Monica

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Just noticed my blue male budgie and female lovebird doing the mating thing. If one hatches, I'll be sure to post it.
You are more likely to have parthenogenesis ("virgin birth") than a hybrid between the two. If a chick does hatch, definitely let us know! :)
 

TheMacDadd

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Has any one seen the result of a tiel and galah? Never heard of this being possible. Wonder how healthy etc such a combination would be...interesting
they look beautiful! here's a picture note: this bird is not mine it's just a picture from the internet.
020056cockatiellloyd-marshall02.jpg they're called "galatiels"!
 

Shezbug

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Monica

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they look beautiful! here's a picture note: this bird is not mine it's just a picture from the internet.
View attachment 374711 they're called "galatiels"!

Cockatiels are just mini cockatoos... both in Australia.



Budgies also come from Australia, however lovebirds originate from Africa. This doesn't mean that they can't breed simply from being in separate countries/parts of the world, but that they have basically evolved quite differently for so long so far apart that chances of hybrids between them are low. There are species that, despite being separated for hundreds of years, can still hybridize, so it's not really a hard/fast rule by any means.
 
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