Can i move 1 week mature budgies into another nest box minus the mother rejecting them?
I have 2 one week old baby budgies and the mother have chewed lots of holes in the nest box. their is now a hole surrounded by the bottom as well.
i was wondering if i could put the babies surrounded by a new nesting box or would the mother reject them.
Don't try to move the nest or babies...sometimes the parents will wound them.
If the nest box is raised, something needs to be taped to the bottom so the chicks don't topple thru...don't worry about holes in the sides or top.
Now that you know she like to chew up her nest box, build of get somebody to build you one out of wood, or you can buy them at most pet shops.
Good luck
Do not move the babies to a new nest box, the parents will rabandon the babies. I would suggest cutting a colossal piece of cardboard and tape it over the hole. Use two layers of cardboard. In in the region of another week, you can pull the babies from the nestbox and start hand feeding them. Get a small brooder, place 2 inches of pine shaving, place a heat pad under the brooder and have the settng on low.
Answers: It would actually depend on how tame the mother bird is. I own changed the nest box on my baby finches with no problem - replacing one that got raining and moldy with a dry one in the same place. A lot of relations think that if you touch a baby bird, the human smell on them will lead to the parents to reject them. This is false. Birds do not have a sense of smell, so they cannot smell humans. The reason the parent would abandon the babies is because she be scared away by the human "predator" who disturbed her nest. If your parent bird is used to you going in and looking surrounded by the nest or fussing with the nest, and you are careful to move the whole nest into a different nest box, and put it in exactly the same place as the old-fashioned nest box, there really should be no problem. I've done this with my finches for years without losing any to mortal abandoned because I fussed with the nests. If your parent bird is not used to you fussing beside the nest, then I would suggest, very accommodatingly, putting a piece of cardboard or thin wood or even a piece of screen/wire under the box. You can tape it to the underside of the box near heavy duty packing tape or duct tape to hold it contained by place.
i do it with mine all the time, ive never have any problems, go for it. (as long as the pair is in a small breeding box, whether theyre in an aviary, i wouldn't suggest it)
