Several precautions should be taken to minimize the risk of fighting among breeding group.
First all the budgerigars should be paired, if one odd hen is in the cage they become aggressive during breeding season.
All the nest boxes should be located at same height to avoid fighting between the hens to secure the highest nest box.
More number of nest boxes should be provided than the pair number. This will ensure adequate choice to breeding female. This will also minimize the territorial aggression.
They do not built nest, hence nest box designed for Budgerigars should have recess in the bottom to prevent rolling of eggs.
The nest box floor area should be 6 inch x 6 inch size and the height should be 8 inches. An entrance hole size of 1 ¾ inch diameter is sufficient.
New bird should not be introduced to the established breeding colony during breeding season.
Budgerigar are more prolific breeding and will breed over most of the year, if given opportunity.
The number of egg in a clutch is usually about 5 and female will incubate and hatching takes place after eighteen days.
High protein rearing food or even brown bread soaked in mill will be useful once the chicks hatch.
Chopped green food placed on top of the dish can encourage reluctant individual to taste the food.
Once the chick is one week old the bedding should be changed to avoid accumulation of dropping.
The hatchlings are altricial – blind, naked, totally helpless, and their mother feeds them and keeps them warm around the clock day and night.
Around 10 days of age, the chicks' eyes will open, and they will start to develop feather down.
The appearance of down occurs precisely at the ages (around 9 or 10 days of age) for closed banding of the chicks. Budgerigar's closed band rings must be neither larger or smaller than 4.0 to 4.2 mm.
They develop feathers around 3 weeks of age. (One can often easily note the colour mutation of the individual birds at this point.)
At this stage of the chicks' development, the male usually has begun to enter the nest to help his female in caring and feeding the chicks.
Some budgerigar females, however, totally forbid the male from entering the nest and thus take the full responsibility of rearing the chicks until they fledge.
Depending on the size of the clutch and most particularly in the case of single mothers, it may then be wise to transfer a portion of the hatchlings (or best of the fertile eggs) to another pair.
The foster pair must already be in breeding mode and thus either at the laying or incubating stages and/or rearing hatchlings.
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