New to forum, and have a question about breeding!

[pretty_bird]

:budgie: Hi, I'm new to the forum, and I've been looking for information about breeding parakeets! I have two. . .I think it's a male and female. Their names are Sally (nicknamed silly sally), and Nick (nicknamed nickelodeon). My name is Meghan, and I live with my fiance, Leonardo, in Miami. Nick and Sally are a year old, maybe a little older. . .we got them at a pet store last September, not long before hurricane Wilma hit, lol! They are both very active, chirp a lot, seem very intelligent, play a lot, etc. Sally has a way with smiling with her eyes :) Leo and I have a pretty good size cage with plenty of toys in it, bird bath, cuttle bone, vitamins added to the water, and are fed seed, mango, papaya, broccoli sprouts (loves those), etc. We also allow Nick and Sally to fly freely around our apartment for a few hours everyday, and they pretty much trained themselves to stay in our living room, but fly in syncronized circles around it, then stay on the top of their cage, and eventually they put themselves back in the cage. A few days ago at the pet store my fiance approached me with a breeding box for our parakeets. . .he has wanted to breed them for a while, but I wanted to wait until they were a year old at least. Now that they've reached that age, I'm starting to consider breeding Nick and Sally, but not as a business. . .only once or twice. I'm trying to find as much information about breeding parakeets as I can, but there is one question that I can not find a definite answer to. I have heard that parakeets are intelligent and that they are "community" or very social birds. . .I can tell they're intelligent, lol! What I meant by the term "community" birds is that I've heard that parakeets usually need more than two birds to successfully breed, and rarely does only a single pair of parakeets breed. Is this true? Should I consider getting another one or two parakeets to add? I've also read that it's important to be there for the baby birds a lot when they hatch. . .I have a lot of time to devote to this if needed. I'll get going now. . .this is a long message :-P I will appreciate all help and advice given :) Thank you, and take care!

Meghan :budgie:

[buddy]

They may breed better with more than 1 pair but they can still breed fine with 1 pair, at leat thats what I think, my neighbors bought one pair and bred them!:)

[abel]

We have only one pair, and it took three years for them to breed, but, maybe they would have bred sooner, had we put in a nestbox. We didn't do that until our hen showed definite signs of wanting to lay. Good luck!

[buddy]

They would have probably bred sooner if provided with a nestbox!

[cherokee]

I have read in other forums that people have successfully bred with only 1 pair, I have only 1 pair and I am trying to breed them, the nesting box has been in the cage with them for about a week now.

[pretty_bird]

Thanks for all of your advice! It really helps. . .I just wanted to make sure about the number of birds needed because I don't want to overwhelm Nick and Sally, or get how many more birds just for the sake of breeding. I believe now that I have two males, so I will have to find a female, but at least I don't have to get two or three more birds, lol! They're family first, and in the end it's up to them if they want babies, lol!

[ETAHoffman]

Hi Meghan. Good luck with your birds. It is most unusual for only one pair of birds to breed but, apparently, it can be done. Since they are, in nature, colony birds, the magic number to spur breeding seems to be six or more birds. I've read, on this site, that several people have had good luck with only one pair but I must admit that, in my 50 years of breeding, I've never had only one pair successfully breed.

I, too, am located in Miami and would be happy to help you with any information I can. I'm in the phone book (Thomas Lee Bishop) if you'd like to call....in the mornings or on the weekend.

Again, good luck and welcome to the group. There's a lot of good information here and a LOT of enthusiasm.

Tom

[Meghanxx4]

hello, my name is meghan too :D, well they do breed better i think if theres more than one pair, however it does work if you only have 1 pair, it just may take a bit longer, and also they usually dont mate right away they gotta bonde together and stuff, and sometimes they jus arent right together and also make sure there not related in anyway.If your going to get a nother bird or pair or whatever make sure they get along, the bird might eb too young(depending on what age your new bird is) also make sure you have enough room in your cage fro another bird.good luck with your breeding!

[Joey]

I would get another pair they would encourage the others and they would breed faster...another advantage is if something goes wrong.Example the mother abandons the babies.....you could foster the babies to the other pair if they have babies at the time instead of handfeeding them.But as the others said they would breed fine with one pair.......goodluck it might take a little longer:)