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Follow up...mating and age???

23 9:33:01

Question
OK, well....I was told they were both males when I purchased them. But from what you said and from visiting other sites re: parakeets...I have a male and female. Is it a given that I will end up with baby keets? Is there something other than seperating them that I can do to prevent this? How would I prepare for the blessed occasion or even know it was about to happen? Does mating take place at a certain age? If so, how can I tell how old they are?

Thanks again for such a timely response and I hope to hear from you again soon.

Cittie and Lou

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Followup To
Question -
Back in the spring my son and I got 2 parakeets. My first question is how to tell the sex of the birds?

Next, my son and I would like to be able to handle the birds. How do we help them to get use to us and allow us to hold them? My son is 15 and very responsible.

Thank you,

Cittie and Lou
Answer -
Hello Cittie,

For sexing genraly males have a blue cear(flesh above beak)and females a tan or brown, thou if the birds are albinos, lutinos or other paler colors the females amy be white and the males pink or purple it really depends on color if you let me know there colors I could help more. AS for taming its a bit too late, budgies never become nice and friendly when you have two together but are even less likely to be friendly when they ahvent been handled before this. You can do what I did to tame a single budgie and a single cockatiel(housed seprately of coarse!).... take the birds in to get there wings clipped, then several times daily take the birds out one by one into a quite room like a bathroom, make sure they cant hear each other, talk to the bird that you have out and storke it if it flutters off pick it back up and do it again, again and again, keep doing this if after 4/7 days theres no inprovment theres really no point to keep doing this, I can give you more detaisl adn such if you'd like but right now I'm in a hurry, please feel free to ask again thanks for your questions.

Answer
Hello Again Cittie,

Theres no way to tell the age of adult budgies once they reach about five months of age there eyes which are normal one color get an iris around them after that "dark eye" stage you never can tell how old they are! I assume they were only 8/10 weeks when you boguht them so there probly about 5/10 months old depending on when exactly you bought them you said spring sometime. They wont breed unless you want them to, budgies lay eggs in wooden nestboxs nothing else, if you would like to breed them let me know, I can give you the details, they can breed as early as 9 months but its best to wait until there a 12 to 18 months. Thank you very much for yuor questions and for rating me, hope to hear from you again soon ~Tara