~~ Raising Budgie Babies! ~~

So, my cousin has been raising budgie babies and selling them to good homes. This is her story ~~~

Its December 26, 2011 in the home of my cousin. In an excited email she told us the great news that, in her words:

 "Great news! I just wanted to share this with you all. There’s a chick in the nest, alive and kicking!!!!

The egg hatched about an hour ago. I heard something and then both my birds were in the nest box. I checked it out because there seemed to be some excitement in the nest box then I saw the chick! Will take pictures as soon as I can. She is on the nest and will feed the chick 4 times an hour so I can not disturb her too much now.

The other eggs are due to hatch within a day or two in the order the four eggs were laid.

A day after Christmas too! Yup, I am a bird breeder!! Oh, I wish you were here to see this with me. This is so exciting!!"

One Day Old Baby Budgie

Then last December 28, 2011 I received this from her:

 "I have 3 budgies, my female, Shyla and her mate Chico started breeding. She laid 4 eggs. This morning another egg hatched. Now I have two baby chicks in the nest. Both parents feed them. When they are 6 weeks old and eating on their own I can sell them. I will be trying to sell them on the Kijiji website or I can sell them to the pet stores, they will take them for sure. Budgies do sell very well. But it is very exciting to watch it all unfold in your own home."

One More to go...

Now its January 1, 2012 and another email tells me this:

" Just wanted to let you know that the fourth and final egg hatched this morning, on New Years Day! Four eggs were laid and four eggs hatched. They are all alive and doing great. Both parents feed them and they are so protective of their babies. Each time an egg would hatch, the parents got so excited! It is really remarkable to see this all unfold."

Sadly on January 11th she sent me this email update:

"Two of my baby chicks did not survive. They hatched late and were not big enough to fight for the food and it appears that they were trampled to death. But two of the chicks have survived and are doing great. They are growing fast and they are beginning to get their feathers now and their eyes are open and they are moving around more in the nest box. Looks like they both will be white budgies which are considered pretty birds and sell for a higher price. In a couple of weeks when they have all their feathers and are coming out of the nest box and eating on their own, I can sell them. I may have a buyer for one of them already; will have to wait and see. I have never done this before so out of four chicks, I still had two chicks that survived."

Four baby budgies

 As of March 8th:

"Guess what? I did it! I was successful! A lady phoned me this afternoon and wanted to buy one of my budgies! She told me that she wanted to buy one for her daughter. She went to the pet stores to buy one but was not happy with what she saw because she wanted a ‘baby’ budgie; which by the way, to get a baby budgie right out of the nest is not easy to do. The pet store gave her my phone number and directed her to call me to get a ‘baby budgie!’ She told me that.

All I have done so far was posted on a piece of paper that I had some baby budgies for sale and I put them up in the malls and corner stores. My camera won't work so I need to get a new one so I can get some pictures of the budgies. Anyway, the lady with her daughter showed up tonight and I sold her a beautiful blue and white female budgie. This budgie was only 2 and half months old – born January 2nd 2012. This budgie had a beautiful voice too and the female budgie is a lot quieter than the male which was what they wanted. They both seem very excited about buying my budgie so I do feel confident that she went to a good home. They are calling her Twitter – seems to fit her too. I sold her for $30.00 – not bad for one bird – ay!! In the stores they sell them for $35.00 – $45.00 and up.

And my female budgie, Shyla, has once again, so far, laid 2 more eggs in the nest box. So by the end of the month looks like there will once again be a few chicks in the nest." 

Would You Look At That!!

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When I was a kid my mother had a cranky male budgie named Poncho, he was green and lorded it in his cage!  His favorite activity was to be let out of his cage all day after he had his wings clipped, although by then he was getting too fat to fly! He was so very proud of the 'game' HE invented ~~ it went like this: someone put a spoon on the dishwasher where his cage was and Poncho thought it GREAT FUN to pick it up in his beak and throw it off. He'd chatter loudly and happily to himself after the fact and got really annoyed when we didn't put the spoon back on the dishwasher. He'd play this game for hours if we let him...

This was a great story to share, I hope other readers and visitors will share a story, idea or suggestion in my comment box. 

Catspaw