Expert: Chrys Meatyard - 3/13/2009

Question
I borght my budgie from the pet shop and they said that it was 6-8 weeks old.I went on the internet and the infomation provided showed that it was 4-6 months old.how do i tell how old my budgie is

Answer
Hi, Nia,

If the bird has a leg band, you can check the leg band for year of hatching.  It's difficult to judge the age of a budgie unless the bird is less than 3-4 months old.  A budgie less than 3-4 months old will still have thin black striped feathers across it's forehead.  Thus, if your new bird is 6-8 weeks old, it will still have the black stripes.  If the black stripes are no longer apparent, your bird is older than 3-4 months.  A budgie this young (6-8 weeks old) may not be completely weaned yet and/or may have some difficulty eating certain foods because it's beak isn't hard enough yet.  My baby budgies don't wean completely until they are at least 6 weeks old, sometimes 8 weeks old, depending on the bird.  I really doubt your baby birds are this young or they would still be with their parents and/or being handfed.

Watch your bird's molts.  A budgie usually molts the first time when s/he is around 6 months old.  It will molt again when it is about 12 months old.  After the second molt at about a year of age, the bird should normally molt once per year.  However, depending on the bird's environment, some birds will molt more often.

You can also try to judge a young bird by it's cere (colored area above the beak).  If the cere is still changing colors, your bird is probably less than 6 months old (cere color can change with molting up through the first year, depending on the overall coloration of the bird).  If the cere is say all blue, your bird could be 6-12 months of age or older.

Other than the above, a bird's behavior sometimes will give away it's age.  Younger budgies tend to be more active, curious, frightened of humans unless they are tame/were handfed, often shy away from certain foods they may not recognize as food, sometimes move cautiously about the cage, etc.

Chrys