Ask Lafeber

Female Budgie attacking

Why is Female Budgie attacking 3 fledge lings whilst having
6 nestlings

Hi Pat,

The short answer is because she has nestlings, which she should not have this soon after already raising chicks. Older chicks will not be tolerated by the parents once they are weaned or if the parents start a new clutch too soon. What many owners do not realize it that it is your responsibility to keep your birds from breeding too often. In the wild, the breeding season is relatively short, and they typically can only raise one clutch per year. Wild parents must spend time teaching their young to forage for food and survive. They would never start a new clutch while they have unweaned or newly weaned chicks. In captivity, a budgie pair will literally breed over and over until it kills the hen from laying too often. You should remove the nest box as soon as the chicks leave the box – even thought they won’t be weaned yet. This keeps the hen from starting a new clutch too soon. If she lays eggs while the chicks are still in the box, you need to throw the new eggs away. They will not even begin to develop until at least 48 hours of incubation, so the best thing to do is monitor the box and remove any new eggs, and then take the box down once the chicks can leave it on their own. You must rest the pair for 6 months before giving the box back, which means limiting the pair to two clutches per year. Since she has had so many chicks in a short period of time, I wouldn’t breed this pair again for a year, to give her plenty of time to rebuild her resources and recover from the strain of forming and laying eggs as well as caring for so many chicks.

As for these older chicks, you need to remove them from the cage or the hen will kill them. Hopefully they are all eating on their own. If you have seen the male still feeding them, then you can try putting him with the older chicks to see if he still needs to feed them. But he really needs to be helping the hen since they have 6 chicks in the nest. Offer a lot of foods – pellets, seeds, millet, cooked brown rice with mixed veggies and some cooked egg. Once they are eating well, you should stop offering seeds because they do not get very much nutrition if any from loose seed mixes. Pellets are nutritionally balanced and are the best thing to feed, or you can feed our foraging diets. These diets contain fresh, human grade seeds with the hulls removed and are coated with a nutritionally balanced binder to provide the same complete nutrition as pellets. Watch these older chicks closely to make sure all are eating, because they can starve in a little as a day if they do not eat.

Bird Food Guide

Thank you for asking Lafeber,

Brenda