O.K., here are some more pictures
We adopted all our budgies, either from people who could not keep them any more or from the local animal shelter. The most important bird is Eddie (the bright green male budgie who's sitting in the lower right corner of the bird tree pic). All the female AND the male budgies love him , he seems to be extremely attractive for budgies.
The oldest one is Charlie (the grey male budgie), he is about 12 years now which is quite a good age for a budgie. He can't fly any more at the moment because moulting takes him quite some time nowadays. He is big friends with Horsti, the yellow male budgie.
Our budgies can fly freely around our living room and have some landing places and their bird tree apart from the aviary.

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I'm in heaven - such wonderful photos. Its overpowering - can't imagine what it must be like to have 10 Budgies!

I really like your hand built Budgie tower. It is great & quite attractive. [course the beautiful Budgies on it doesn't hurt.]
How is it mounted?

That is so sweet & very interesting that Eddie has such charisma. Has he ever had a family? Do your birds breed or are you on top of that?

The pictures are beautiful. Eddie looks like he might be an English budgie. Is he?

No, Eddie never had a family. There are so many budgies that need a new home, so I wouldn't want to let them breed.
Eddie was kept in an aviary in a dark barn with lots of other budgies and cockatiels. Half of the birds were killed by a marten attack, the other ones were adopted by new owners. I got Eddie and another budgie from there and they were quite shy at the beginning. But now Eddie is not shy any more at all .
I think he is maybe 50% of an English budgie. But I have another female budgie, Pele, that is an English budgie I think, she is quite big compared to the other budgies.
She is the grey female in front (looking at Eddie )

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The budgie tower is mounted in a bowl that was filled with cement, on top of that I put some bird's sand. The main poles were screwed together and the other branches are just tied to it.

Thanks for the info - concrete in a bowl sounds pretty stable - I love the bamboo idea & adding new branches.

My sling-shot shaped perch for my lads went thru lots of modifications & the last was to screw it into a platform - it would topple when they took off.

Are all your Budgies rescue?


PS I think we need to move to a new thread in the Budgies section soon - these threads get lost over time.

Well, all of my budgies could not live at their former homes any more, but for various reasons. Some lived with elderly ladies who died and then some neighbours gave them to me. Some were brought to me by their owners because they did not have time for them any more or because the budgie partner died and the people did not want to get another one.
Last year we got one budgie from the animal shelter, he had to live on his own in a small cage without any free flight for 5 years. Now he is still in such a good mood every day just because he can fly and has his budgie friends .

I like how your flock has grown. Did you plan to have so many? Have you had problems, ever, with introducing a new bird?

I got Laker from a shelter.
He was flighted but I have no idea how long he spent in his not so large cage. He sure let us know he wanted out - bobbing at the cage door. It took him about 4 months before his flying skills were noticeably more daring and sustained. He tamed so quickly I thought he must have been trained before.

I got Rio as a baby, from a breeder - I was happy with her set up but now I am a bit disappointed, in myself, that I didn't keep with the re-home idea. I love Rio too - don't get me wrong - he's a handful.

No, we sureley did not plan to have so many . I got my first couple from someone who kept them in a small cage for 2 years without letting them fly. I never intended to have birds, but I felt so sorry for them so I talked the owner into giving them to us.
We did not have a clue about how to keep budiges, the only thing we felt was that they needed to fly and to get a bigger cage. So we built a large aviary and then it looked so empty with only 2 birds in it . And also they looked bored from time to time. So we got some more. It was funny to see how the budgies changed their behaviour when more and more birds came to their flock, I think the most important change was when we had 6 birds, with that number they hardly ever looked like they were bored, there is always some other budgie who also feels like playing. Now with 10 birds (our maximum was 11) they are very active and fly around and play quite a lot.

No, we never really had lots of difficulties when we got a new bird. Only one time we got a budgie that was kept on his own for 2 years after his partner died and he was totally shocked to see so many other budgies. He just sat on his branch and did not move (he did not even eat or drink I believe) for about 2 days. And then he suddenly became the most active bird of our flock, he got a female partner and became friends with all the others .
But once I got a very overweighted female budgie which was kept in a tiny cage for all of her life (6 years) and she also did not have a partner. When she came to my flock she was so happy and she fell in love with a male budgie. And then she wanted to lay eggs even though we don't have any sort of breeding box. Because of her bad health she had problems with the egg and she needed to have an operation and unfortunately she did not survive it.
So I am careful now not to take lonely females which are too overweight to avoid things like that.

But normally the birds that come here see the flock and the aviary and they want to move instantly into their new home. The 'old' budgies are interested but careful and look at the new bird a bit sceptical for the first day or two and after that they are part of the flock.

What an awesome story - I really enjoyed it & learning about having more & their attitudes. That was sad about the female who died.

Is it difficult to keep them from laying? ... I think we should start this discussion on another thread - I'll set it up, if you don't mind.

Go to ~ Males & females - keeping them happy