cant tell the sex of my budgier

Question
QUESTION: Hi! I have 2 new budgies (given as a Christmas presents)I am not sure how old they are. The colors of the cere's are blue and pink. At first i thought the pink ones a female, since i saw them kissing a lot and preening each other. Plus the person who gave me said they were a pair. I searched in the internet and found out she can be a he. So i bought 2 more budgies with white cere's and a big cage with a divider. But they don't seem ineterested with the two females. Not minding them. The other female keeps fighting them though. whichever male i pair with her she fights. And they both end up flying away and running from her. What do i do to make them interested to each other? they have separate nesting house(wood) i give them vitamin drops, mix seed and kangkong. Tried giving them apples, bananas, sheded carrots but they seem afraid to get close to it. Should i remove first the divider to see which is pair with whom? and when do i puit wood shavings in the nesting house?
Thank you so much in advance

ANSWER: The one with a pink cere is a male.  This color variation is caused by recessive genetic traits.  The reason you may have been told that they are a pair is that the one with a bluish cere may be the female.  The ceres of females can often start out as bluish purple and then turn to brown.  You can also tell by checking the area around the nostrils.  Females have white rings around their nostrils while males don't.  If this explanation is hard to understand, let me know and I can send you pictures to clarify.

They may not bond right away.  This process can take months.  It's normal for females to be aggressive, and there's not much that you can do other than separate them and let her calm down.  If you want to do this, make sure that they are still kept close enough that they can communicate.  That way they can get to know each other without worrying about her hurting the other birds.  I would give it a month before removing the divider.

It's normal for budgies to be xenophobic and reluctant to try new foods.  Try taking small amounts of the fruits and veggies and mixing them in with the seed.  They may not associate these new things in the nest with food.  However if they find it in the food dish, they may be more likely to eat it.

It doesn't really matter when you put wood shavings in because they won't go into the nest box until they want to anyway.  Just make sure that you put only a small amount in that they can easily remove.  Some budgie owners will put too much nesting in and the birds will get frustrated and try to find another nesting location.  You should make sure that you have multiple boxes.  That will avoid problems like the females fighting over nests.

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QUESTION: By the way, how can i tell the age of my budgies. And how can i tell if they are of age to breed. Can you please send me pictures so i can check if my blue bird's a female? Thanks again.

Answer

Todd   Age can be kind of tricky, and this method isn't always accurate.  Check the chick's eyes.  Babies will have dark, almost black eyes.  As they age, they get a light ring around the dark center.  This change happens after about 6 months.  Another method is even less accurate.  Babies will have dark horizontal lines along the back of their heads.  These lines fade after a year or so.  Generally after a year you can breed them.  So if the baby lines on the back of the head are gone, they should be old enough to breed.

My female is camera shy, but here's a picture of my male for comparison.