Expert: Riley - 2/14/2007

Question
I don't know a lot about parakeets, but I had a male and female. The male died before he and the female ever got a chance to mate. If we get a new male will the female still mate with it? What are signs they are going to mate?

Answer
Hi Becca, thanks for posting,

I have gone through the EXACT same thing. My male budgie passed away and they hadn't mated yet. I felt bad for the female and after grieving over the loss of the budgie, I purchased another male from the pet store. It is almost spring and my female has already laid two eggs to far! One on Valentines Day! It took my female a while to get used to the male, and I wouldn't recommend putting them together right away. Just get two cages, one bird in each and put their cages side by side for a week, then when you put them together watch them for a moment, making sure that they don't start to attack each other. After I put the nesting box on the cage this spring the only sign I got that they were being nicer to each other, and possible mating, was they had a certain beautiful cheep that you might hear come from a baby budgie. After that the female budgie start to venture into the nesting box more and more. And I even witnessed them mating. Two days ago she laid an egg, today, another. If there are any other questions I can answer for you please let me know! I'd be happy to help.

Riley