Before getting a pair of Budgies you probably asking your self Can a Male and Female Budgies Live Together? Let’s find out
Getting budgies is no party. If you are thinking of getting a pair for yourself, you need to research properly. There are some of the factors that should be kept in mind before reaching a pet store. These factors being how many budgies you should get, should you get a pair of male Parakeets or females, and whether you should get a male and a female.
These are some of the important factors that will help you decide. Through this article, you can make the best decision before you get your little friends.
Can a Male and Female Budgies Live Together?
The answer to this question is Yes, the budgies of the opposite sex are quite likely to live together. There is a great chance that they will get along with each other. It proves to be one of the reasons that budgies stay happy. However, this trick comes with a bundle of challenges as well. These challenges include ignoring you. This means your budgies will ignore you and they will play with each other when elaborated.
What Happens When I Keep a Male and a Female Together?
You can obviously keep your male and female budgies together. It is not that difficult as you think. In fact, the budgies can live happily with each other whereas, on the contrary, this comes with some of the challenges for the owners. In some cases, some owners cannot cope up with these challenges and end up giving up on their little pals.
Here is the list of some of these challenges that you should take into account before going for it:
- Opposite sex budgies lay eggs
- Opposite sex budgies can fight sometimes
- To take care of the eggs
- To get rid of the eggs
- Taking care of the babies.
Opposite Sex Budgies Can Lay Eggs
It is an obvious fact that the male and female budgies will mate. When these birds mate, they will lay eggs. They play together and mate at night. One day you will be surprised to see eggs in their cage.
When simply put, if you do not mind your budgies mating, you can keep them together in the same cage. But if it bothers you, it is advised to keep these little birds in different cages.
Opposite Sex Budgies Can Fight Sometimes
It is a universal thing that females are more territorial. These little creatures always want to boss around male parakeets. For this reason, both budgies tend to fight. You will often find them attacking each other. This means you will always need to keep an eye on these birds because sometimes they end up killing each other.
You will have to concern their safety as well.
To Take Care of the Eggs
Some owners tend to get uncomfortable heating, freezing, shaking, or disposing of the eggs of their budgies. If you are one of those people and feel the same then this might cause a problem for you. If you keep a male and a female in the same cage, you would have to face this problem very often. It is advised to keep the budgies separate.
But if you feel totally comfortable with disposing of the eggs or even taking care of the eggs, you can keep the male and female together in a cage.
Taking Care of the Babies
As stated above, if you don’t feel comfortable with disposing of the eggs or if you feel comfortable with your budgies having their chicks, you would need to take care of the baby budgies as well. This might end up being a pain for some of the owners.
You need to research properly about the baby birds’ feeding and all. You need to provide your birds a nice and comfortable nest box or a cage where the female budgie can lay off her eggs and provide them the heat they require.
Is it Possible for the Male and Female Budgies to Live Together Without Breeding?
It is quite a tricky question. It is naturally not possible for the male and female budgies to live together and not mate. However, there are ways through which you can stop your male and female budgies from breeding.
You CAN Stop your budgies from mating! And the butter on the bread is, it is not even that difficult as you think.
Why stop them from mating? Because it is easier to prevent birds from laying eggs than thinking what will you do with too much Budgies and going through all the hustle.
Here is what you can practice to stop the mating:
- Don’t encourage breeding behavior of the budgies
- Do not keep the birds in darkness
- Eliminate the nest box from their cage
- Make your parakeets sleep early
Don’t Encourage Breeding Behaviour of the Budgies
Breeding behavior is portrayed by female budgies a few days before the male and female budgies mate. These behaviors include regurgitating food, beak rubbing, or tail-lifting.
Regurgitation of food refers to spitting of food wherever and whenever the budgie wants. It is not to be confused with vomiting. Vomit is an uncontrolled ejection of undigested food whereas regurgitation is a purposeful spit.
Sometimes you might encounter a behavior in budgies when the female budgie will rub her vent (inside the tail) against her favorite toy, back of your hand, mirror, shoes, or your shoulders.
This is known as the vent rubbing in budgies, one of the breeding behaviors. This behavior should neither be ignored nor encouraged.
Tail-lifting as the word is self-explanatory is a behavior where the female budgie lifts up her tail and invites the male partner for mating.
These behaviors are the clear cut indications that your budgies are about to mate and that you should place them in different cages. You should keep them away from each other and turn off their hormones.
Do Not Leave the Birds in Enclosed Spaces
Budgies tend to think that enclosed spaces are a great place to lay eggs or even to mate. So if your budgies’ cage is placed in a dark enclosed space, remove it. The reason behind this is that the next thing you will find is them matting before you know it. These enclosed spaces mean dark places such as under the couch, inside empty boxes, dark rooms, under the bed, and other such places. You female budgie will be in a continuous search for spaces as such.
Keep an eye on your little friends especially when they are out of the cages. When she finds a nest in a dark space, she will think of it as a place to lay eggs.
Eliminate the Nest Box From their Cage
It may sound like a great idea to provide a nest box in winters to some owners. Yes, it is, but you should keep the fact into consideration that the budgies will mate frequently in a nest box. If you are not careful, you will end up having eggs of these budgies. Make sure you do not provide them with the nest box no matter how cold your budgies feel.
Are you worried about your budgies getting cold? Well, the solution to your problem is external heat. Yes, you heard me right. When you provide external heat to your budgie’s cage, it will keep them warm and nice.
However, make sure you do not provide excessive heat and place the heaters at a good distance to avoid any mishap.
Make Your Parakeets Sleep Early
Spring and summers have very long days. Budgies often mate during these two seasons. If you let them be awake at night, they will think that you want them to breed. Therefore, make sure your parakeets are asleep early because it will turn off their mating hormones and they won’t mate.
If you want to make them asleep early, cover their cage. Covering the cage will result in helping them to rest and sleep peacefully.
How Do I Stop My Male and Female Budgies from Fighting?
Do you often find your budgies entangled in fights? If yes, then rest assured, it is quite normal for the budgies to fight. However, sometimes these fights turn into life-ending situations for birds. There are more than thousands of cases where budgies end up killing each other.
These fights are not for their fun. There could be some of the reasons when these little creatures get all mad at each other.
- Fighting for territory
- Protecting their eggs
- Out of jealousy
Fighting for Territory
It is a natural fact that female budgies are more territorial. They are quite sensitive when it comes to acquiring their territory. It proves out to be one of the reasons that birds end up killing each other. Female budgies always want more personal space and they become harmful when the other budgie is in her space. If you find your budgies fighting all the time, place them in different cages or get a more spacious cage built for them.
Protecting their Eggs
Just like in human beings and animals, any mother can fight for babies, same is the case when it comes to these little creatures. Budgies often fight with each other if the female budgie finds any other budgie near the nest box, be it the male budgie or another female.
Sometimes a female budgie gets aggressive when she is sitting on the eggs and does not get attention from the male budgie.
Out of Jealousy
When a female budgie is done laying her eggs, she spends a good amount of time sitting on the eggs. It results in the male budgie feeling ignored, jealous, and trying to break or harm the eggs. As a counterattack, the female budgie fights back to protect her eggs.
Why Does My Male Budgie Feed My Female Budgie?
It is very normal for the birds to feed each other. This is the sign of love and care for each other. You do not need to worry about them breeding if they do so. It is not one of the breeding behaviors that we discussed above. Instead, it shows that the parakeets are getting along and enjoying each other’s companionship.
You should be happy when you encounter such behavior in your pair of budgies.
Now to sum up everything that has been discussed so far, it is advised to have a male and a female budgie together. However, it only proves to be helpful if you do not mind them breeding or taking care they don’t breed.
Two opposite sex budgies can fight when the female budgie lays eggs but they will be more than happy with each other usually.
To cope up with this problem, just keep the male parakeet away from her eggs. The particular reason for such circumstances is that he would try to break them out of jealousy. When simply put, this all depends upon the owner of the budgies that having opposite gender parakeets is a good idea or bad. You can always research before getting budgies and decide how you would be comfortable.
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