Reptile & Amphibian Forums

Hi

Boy am I ever glad that I found this website, and what a great one it is!!!
Anyway, I presently have about 17 Cockatiels with 14 or so to be busy laying eggs. I am trying to decide if I want to purchase about 15 Parakeets, which are all proven breeders and are of rare colors. Finally here is my question....the Parakeets would come with a wonderful aviary type cage and it has been suggested that I could use a "Colony type of nesting box" for them. Does anyone know how I could find out more about this type of nest box?? I have searched on the internet some but not coming up with anything.
Any help, advice, or suggestions will be very welcomed

Ann

I actually hadn't heard of colony breeding in budgies, although I have in some other species of birds. Most people will still just offer 1 nest box per pair. With 15 it seems you will have at least 1 if not more that is odd man/girl out. This can cause problems. The only way a breeding colony seems to work (I don't breed but do research so I could be wrong on this) is when each bird in the colony is paired up. Otherwise there seems to be more territorial disputes, aggressiveness and eggs ending up broken or not hatching from stress etc.

Either way good luck and hopefully someone else is more experienced with breeding in this way to answer this question.