So I have four budgies - three males and one hen. Two of the males have a very strong pair bond. The third male, Alex, and the female, Sunny, have a pair bond, though it's rather weak. The female is five, and this male is only a year old.
So the m/f pair recently mated for the first time after about six months together, and immediately the hen went to nest in one of the parakeet boxes hung on the aviary wall. She began to spend all day, every day inside, being fed by her young mate, and in the last week has laid three eggs so far.
Now, however, I notice her mate has grown bored of helping rear the young, and no longer goes into the box or feeds her inside it. What has happened, however, is that the bonded male pair has begun going in and relieving the hen of her duty and taking turns sitting on her eggs for her while she goes out to eat, relieve herself, or even nap for three to four hours out of the box! I find this very cute but also very unusual, if only because the hen is so comfortable with this arrangement even though she is not bonded to either of these males and before this completely ignored them. While the two boys are taking turns watching her eggs, they switch off every half hour with incubation, and sometimes even both of them sit inside on the eggs at once until the hen returns and they politely exit and go play by themselves until needed again.
I will keep updated on how this unusual arrangement progresses! I very much hope the eggs hatch, as I'm particularly interested to see if the boys will also help feed the young! Has anyone ever seen this sort of group child-rearing arrangement in budgies before?
I don't know much on either of these males' histories, I know that Sydney, an English blue, is 5 years old and may have been bred before. The other male, Arthur (green and yellow pied), was found last summer lost outdoors so his history is completely a mystery.
This is Sunny and Alex.
And this is Sydney and Arthur.
