Steph's Budgies/Sexed

[Paulette]

Steph.....I can't believe that I didn't already tell you what I thought they were....I know i looked at some of your pics before.....but sometimes my computer is really slow and won't open all the pics in the album and I bail.....I can't see Eric's newest pics and I've tried like 3 times....I can never get the "How to Hold your Lovebird" link.

I think that Sky is male....as he gets older his pink cere will turn darker blue.
George is your female....if her cere is white or tan (kind of hard to see in some of the pics)....as she gets older and ready to mate it will get brown and crusty looking. They are young ones and so cute. Sky almost looks just like my Cupie that is hatching babies right now.

ps: Beautiful budgie cage!

[Mummieeva]

lol ty i am thinking same thing.


Steph

[Paulette]

Sweet!!!

[Paulette]

Steph....here are some more interesting facts:

Female budgies can have any of the following cere colors:
soft powder blue (with white rings around the nairs)
soft tan
dark brown
almost black

Young birds have "barring" on the head that continues almost down to the cere and are called "unbroken caps". The adult birds will have a white "cap" between the barring and the cere.

In adult birds the eye will have a white ring and a black pupil while the baby birds have a black eye without the white ring.

There are some really good budgie topics and information at
www.petnet.com
that include training of a young budgie, teaching them to talk, housing, breeding, good foods, etc.

[Mummieeva]

ty so much. I am actually thinking about getting them and lovies both bigger cages soon. the one they have the wires are a bit bent from the toys.


Steph

[Booda's Butt]

forgive me for asking a possibly silly question, but I have limited knowledge in the smaller birds...

I always thought parakeets, the ones sold in most petstores, could be sexed simply by females having a more pink/tan cere, and the males having the blue/violet cere. I've been reading about lovebirds, and many of the sites also include information on Budgies. Are the Budgies I'm reading about not the same as the petstore parakeets? or have I just always thought wrong about sexing by cere coloring?

[Mummieeva]

Some can be sexed by ceres and others can not. Juvanille's(i know wrong spelling) normaly have a tan colored ceres til the reach mature age. Then some certain colors you can not tell sex by ceres cause both genders have it. It is a guess even for mine. Budgies are what petstores call parakeets. Real parakeets look nothing like them..lol. But they are in same family.


Steph

[Paulette]

I believe parakeets refer to like Bourkes, or Ring Neck family, but in the south we call Budgies parakeets for lack of knowing correctly. Males usually have pink cere when young and it turns blue when older. But like Steph said, in the lighter colors and white birds I think it is harder to tell. Although I did find some information that says: Albino and Lutino males have pink ceres, but hens of the same mutation still have normal cere color (which I take to mean, white, tan, brown). The male does rapid beak tapping, the hen does not.
A more definate way to tell is the opaque or glossy cere. Males have translucent or glossy/more clearish looking cere, females have opaque/chalky looking ceres. In females sometimes the flesh will build up tall on the cere during breeding season along with being brown and crusty, this flesh does sluff off when out of mating season. Males are more calm, females are biters.

The new male and female I got: male has pink, female has powder blue with white rings around the nairs. I was beginning to think she was male until I found this information about the white rings around the nairs/nostrils.

Pretty interesting information. I also read breeding season runs from Feb. to Sept. in the Southern hemisphere. Breeding budgies should be 12 months or older. Females over 4 years and Males over 6 years should be retired from breeding.