Breeding Budgies reminds me of the old joke “What are the two happiest days of a boat owners life?” The day they buy the boat and the day they sell the boat.
Parallel to that is breeding season. Not that we ever stop thinking about it. I am looking at the breeding pairs all season, either second guessing myself or making plans for next year.
However, as the breeding season slowly rolls to a close, I am glad to see the end in sight. I need a break, they need a break, everyone needs a break.
As of today, I have four nest boxes of babies right on the verge of fledging for a total of 9 babies, one with babies a couple weeks younger and two nest boxes of just banded and not banded babies.
As the babies get ready to fledge, I remove the hens this time of year, avoiding, eggs and damaged fledglings.
The problems this time of year involve air flow – heat here in Arizona. No matter how much I cool down the breeding rooms, it seems that the parents spend most of their time outside the nest box, wings out trying to cool off. This is also the time of year that French Molt can show up, babies get sick and it seems they are smaller too. Out they are going as quickly as possible.
This year I built an outdoor flight for the weanlings, it is 8 ft by 10.5 ft by six ft high. The safety is 10.5 ft long 30″ wide and and 6 ft high. The safety faces west so I enclosed that with shade cloth. It seems to be putting a decent buffer zone between the actual aviary and the Arizona sunshine. It is also cooled with a huge evaporative cooler, it is run on medium or high all day and turned off at night.
I am getting ready to add onto the south side of the aviary, it will house geriatrics, building the panels currently, I will also lengthen the safety to include that flight. The plans for this flight are 6 ft tall by 6 ft wide and 8 ft long. Shade cloth is planned to shade the south side and of course the roofing panels will be in place.
My goal is for the birds to spend as much time as possible outdoors, in natural light, better quality air, and the freedom to fly in the large flights. I believe it makes for a hardier bird, and the babies seem to grow faster, better and stronger. Time will tell.
That gives a total of six flights of varying sizes. four inside and two outside. Seems like the birds encroach on human space more each year.
I am so ready to have them all out there. and come October I will be so excited to start breeding birds again. The cycle continues….
So much spam almost missed this !! See you in August