Last Updated on by Mitch Rezman
Barbara T. wants to know
My darling birdlings, parakeets, happen to both be female. One, Moonshadow, is approx 7 years old…a rescue.
When her partner passed last year, after the funeral, Moonbirdy was sooo lonely, depressed, inactive.
We, in mid pandemic, bought a pet shop friend for her. Of course, the pet shop attendant assured my husband Mercury was Male.
I had concerns with a young male upsetting my non-egg-laying Moonshadow.
I was almost thankful Mercury was female…until they started bickering every day!
No bloodshed, but clear annoyance coming from their cage.
It is worse as Mercury has matured and Holy Hannah, when they both melted together, Mercury’s being a difficult time.
What budgies do when you’re not watching ~ Video
Since they were put together, Mercury has been a bundle of energy, almost making a game of following Moonshadow, hopping to any perch she is on, and making circles around the perches!
I also think Mercury has poor eyesight as she tends to miss her mark when landing, but that’s another tale.
Recently, I separated them by putting a divider in their cage.
Mercury, of course, found a place to slip to Moonshadow’s side, which I would just place Mercury back on her side.
For a couple of days, they were much quieter, and I sensed they missed each other.
BUT then Moonshadow went Mercury’s side!
Out came the divider.
For a few days, they were better behaved, but now have reverted to the calls of distress, squabbling and fighting over toys and such. (Kids!!)
They have plenty and doubles of toys to play with, honestly!
So my lovely friends who send me a great weekly newsletter, my question is simply, “Do you have any suggestions for me to help them get along better?”
I miss the birds caring for each other, as when Sunny Chiquito was alive.
Mercury has certainly brought more activities to Moonshadow since her arrival.
The level of play has increased tenfold, with Mercury’s youthful curiosity and Moonshadow imitating her little sister!
Just be nice to each other, darn it!
Dear Barbara
It is getting harder to be able to sex a young budgie anymore due to excessive inbreeding. Breeders cannot rely on genetic lineups as they have no clue.
Most young budgies we have seen start out with blue ceres, but then they mature, the blue goes away and becomes pink, white, grey, brown, anything female.
The problem was putting a young budgie in with your mature budgie.
The energy of the young one is hard on the older bird.
We have gone through that as well.
We had a feral budgie someone gave us who was very unhappy having been brought in from the outside (this was October) and now forced to live in a cage indoors.
We knew she was going to be very unhappy alone and wanted no part of us.
So we had someone bring us another budgie. But it was younger and it was no joy to the feral budgie so they both were unhappy.
I told Mitch, we need two more budgies.
So we were given a mature pair and the 4 of them were very happy together.
Then we were given 2 more, then 2 more and we ended up with a large aviary with 10 parakeets in it.
A huge mess for us but they were happy.
Over time, we are now down to 6 and hope to stay at this level for a while.
Zippos Circus Trained Budgies ~ Video
Now for you, you have an older bird who is not happy to have this youngster bouncing around.
Do you remove the youngster and find another home or cage for it?
You can give the older female a little mirror for the company instead of another bird.
How big is their cage?
If large enough you can put in plastic plants, hang toys and cardboard pieces to create visual blockers with perches in corners, behind things hanging down, so the older bird can go find a place to sit without being always in front of the new kid.
Over time the younger bird will age, but you have to make sure that they don’t harm each other.
Regards,
Catherine
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