:)My two little babies are just beautiful.Proud owner for only one week. Pet store said it would be weeks before they would trust me. Both parakeets aready know the word treat means I am slowly bringing my hand into the cage with pellet sprays and they eat it while I am holding it. I read several books and watched mult videos on line. I would be grateful for any suggestions that you learned in raising your parakeets. Trial by Error

Opps meant to say they ate "spray millet" from my hand...So sorry, I am a newbie with parakeets. I did buy two because I work all days and wanted them not to be loney..In the morning when I say "See you later" they are quiet, but They both get excited when I come home in the evening..I start talking to them as soon as I walk through the front dor. I am loving being a new parakeet mommy

welcome aboard

yes it will be weeks especially if they are in the same cage as virtually training which takes a lot of time is held up for quite awhile before any success comes if they are in the same cage .. and wings clips leads to some pretty high hopes as when they have wings clipped they have not much of a choice but to perch...

keets dont get lonely if in large enough cages with plenty of toys but no mirrors please or toys that can be picked apart or shreddie as they are called toys...with mirrors they will bond with the bird in the mirror making now even harder to train...

leaving a radio on with lots of toys your bird will never get lonely if even only one is owned...

i would suggest for several reasons getting two large cages bigger the better and **separate for first of all..quarantine reasons of 90days...secondly till they mature and sexes of each bird are known as if you HAVE to separate later it will make it that much more difficult ....so the sooner they are separated the better and ...then there is the training aspect where you dont have much time being away...this slows the process but if separated they will pay more attention to you...when you do go to train which shouldnt be for at least 10days before even trying...

right now just talk softly and move very slowly when around them to change out food and water and clean the cage and let them adjust to everything...

large green leafy veggies are best to use as treats altho admittably right now they wont have a clue what those are so best to just clip to the outside of the cage for now and let them investigate them thru the bars for awhile...its more healthy and better for them as well...and never give up on giving them ...mine took 8mos before he decided he wanted anything to do with veggies...after a few times securing them to the outside of the cage so they dont become overwhelmed then you can place them at the end of a perch inside the cage...where your food cups should also be ...at the ends of perches...and with two birds you should have at minimum four cups of food so there is no territorial thing that gets into play and fighting begins over food.

all in keets time..and things will come around but patience is vital and talking softly and no sudden movements ...always approach as if you saw something YOUR not sure off..remember always your hands to them are like GIANT claws and your size is also skeery to them lol

now one last thing sorta...we all love pictures ...cant get enough of them...so when you can please post some of your new kids on the block...

again welcome to the forum and when you have a chance just about any question you could come up with you will find if...you go to the forums list up top here click on that then you will see...general keet chat and health and medical tabs ...click on either and read all the threads you can in there and get a wealth of good solid information...its like a encyclopedia of knowledge in those threads on birds. sure to keep you busy...

here is a complete list of all things safe and things NOT safe...save to your favorites as im sure you will refer to it often

http://www.parrot-and-conure-world.com/non-toxic-for-birds.html

Thanks for the nice welcome. Would love to share pics but can not figure how to bring them to your site .. Sorry...Great at nursing, bad at computors

get a free acct. at

www.photobucket.com

upload pics to there ...once that is done if you move your mouse to the top of the pic ..you will see several options one being to resize..you will need to size them to 300x300 or a bit less..then hit save....

once that is done...you will also see a box area where there are CODES...one being IMG code...for each pic...copy that then come here an simply paste the code here where you type and submit...it will open the picture for all of us to then see..

Hi and welcome! I love the names you chose. The uploading of pics is easy (especially if I can figure it out it must be pretty easy...) just do as Illusive instructed. We want to see pictures!

Thank you Kathy, I will try to upload pics this weekend...Ahhhh Barney and Clover are so beautiful....And becoming spoil They were fighting a little over the large bell/rope toy so I got a second bell with roping a different color. Now they are happy. I know how to tell the sexes but at what age of the bird will I know. I am guessing that Barney , who skretches a lot is the male..Clover makes more musical type sounds and moves her mouth when I talk to her. Both are now climping up on my finger, but I have not taken them out of the cage yet. Cage is 4 feet high, plus a gym above the cage so plenty of room. Oh almost fortgot, they both love oranges.
PS.. You all have such beautiful parrakeets!!

sexes can not always be easily determined depending on the color genetics of the bird ...however, that being said you should be able to determine the sexes on most at 8 mos. for sure. Also, behavior that you described isnt a way to determine the sexes...

pictures can help with that but not a guarantee ***usually till the age posted above...

here is some sites you might also find interesting on color genetics...and one showing ceres of different birds to help determine the sexes once the birds are mature at 8mos...and another site describing things on behavior

i must also say and please NOTE...some of the beaks in these pictures of the birds are NOT IN GOOD CONDITION in fact they are in TERRIBLE condition...the beak of a bird should be well groomed and not showing cracks like what some of these birds show..the beak of a bird should always be smooth and shinny...and beaks grow surprisingly rapid so grooming them to keep them in good shape is essential...

vitamin deficiencies can lead to soft or poorly formed beaks.

i also recommend these perches to keep a birds beak well groomed so its looking solid with no cracks and smooth. The CEMENT PERCHES WITH SHELLS in the first row and one picture of a longer one in the second row are the ones im referring too.

http://www.birdguys.com/bird-conditioning-perch.html

http://www.birds-online.de/allgemein/geschlecht_en.htm

http://forums.budgiebreeders.asn.au/faqs...&artlang=en

http://littlefeatheredbuddies.com/info/gen-bodylanguage.html

http://www.budgieplace.com/colorsguide.html

the picture below of cappy is when he was NOT in full blown breeding mode and his cere is a lighter blue but in his signature picture its a VERY DEEP blue when he was in full blown breeding mode...note also his smooth shiny beak.




i recommend you save these sites to your favorites...happy reading

Those sites are extremely helpful. I knew of 2 of them, and have bookmarked the other. Such good info. As always, Illusive, you are so knowledgable, thanks.

Thanks for the update. I will look at the sites for education. I am still trying to upload pics. I am now reg. on the site photobucket, but don't know how to get pics from my camera or my phone to the site. Sorry, my sons will have to help me.