There are many things that go into making the perfect budgie for their new family!
Here are some of the things we work for at the aviary, and why they are so important to us and should be to any prospective budgie owner.
Health
This is our #1 concern and goal. Without healthy parents, excellent care and careful selection of genetics and breeding it is impossible to have healthy happy chicks. We maintain a strict set of cleaning habits daily, and only breed with young and healthy pairs who have good family lines, and have come from responsible and caring breeders themselves if they were not raised in our own aviary.
The diet we offer our birds keeps them in top shape with strong immune systems which they pass right on to their chicks. In addition to fresh seed, pellets and veggies daily we also provide a health preventative program of probiotics and supplements to balance out anything they might miss in the bulk of their diet.
We have a strict quarantine process in place, and any new bird that is brought in must be quarantined for a minimum of 30+ days and be in perfect health and feather before being introduced to our flock. This protects our current flock so that each baby that leaves our aviary is in top health, and is why we are confident in offering a health guarantee on every one of our babies.
Personality
Personality is the most often overlooked thing we see in general. Just like with us humans, budgie chicks inherit the personalities of their parents. When pairing up any 2 budgies it is extremely important to consider what their best personality traits are, as well as any that are not ideal so that the best genetics are passed on to the chicks.
If we have a more outgoing and dominant personality female for example, we will pair her with a very laid back and calm male to try to bring out the best qualities in both of them from the chicks. It is this kind of careful pairing that is essential to having happy, well rounded and fun babies that everyone would like to have.
Personality traits that we specifically breed for with every pairing include curiosity, playfulness, calmness, and affectionate. Budgies with personality traits such as aggressive and fearful are not kept as potential breeding pairs, as they will pass these traits right on to their chicks which rarely make good hands on pets and are the opposite of what we breed for.
The babies are only going to be as good as their parents, and taking the time to know the personalities of each potential male and female you have and pairing them accordingly is the only way to get the best results and is what we try our best to do.
Tameness
After each carefully selected pair has hatched and started raising their chicks and they are ready to start being hand fed, it is time to begin working one on one to gain trust with each baby.
Hand feeding helps to strengthen their trust with people. Each chick sees us as their source of food, cuddles and play time. This bond changes how they see people as a whole, and makes bonding with their new owners happen much faster and easier than with parent raised babies who lack this early association and bonding experience.
During this time we also start working on step ups, how to being gentle with their beak, and because they spend so much time hearing us talk to them almost all of our chicks are starting to talk and imitate sounds before they are even weaned.
This early association is essential to make the most well rounded and bonded pet.
Mutations
In addition to the things mentioned above, we also try to have the biggest variety in mutations and colors available as possible for each potential new owners preference.
Getting the desired outcome in the chicks requires an extensive knowledge of their genetics and how the outcomes will effect each pairs chicks. There are recessive, sex linked, semi-dominant and dominant genes which all behave differently depending on what genes each pair is carrying, and careful breedings can produce the most beautiful colors and combinations as you can see on our Budgie Mutations page.
Beautiful colors with lots of personality is what we aim for!