Mating is quite normal and natural for animals, budgies included, they do this all the time. When two budgies are kept together, a male and a female, they will likely mate, but not always.
This article explores why the female budgie is not allowing the male budgie to mate.
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Female budgie not allowing the male to mate:
One of the primary objectives of animals is to mate and reproduce
Mating and reproducing ensures that a species continues after the parent generation. But sometimes mating does not happen as the female bird doesn’t want to mate with the male bird.
Here are reasons why this may be happening:
They aren’t compatible:
It is very common for two budgies of different genders to be compatible and get along with each other once they are housed together but this doesn’t always happen.
The male budgie is the pursuer and the female budgie is the pursued and she will determine if she wants to mate with him or not.
If she doesn’t like him and the two are not compatible then she will boss him around and refuse to mate with him.
If the two birds are not bonded together then they will not mate.
What to do:
These two will not only not be compatible and not mate, but they may also fight with each other too.
The fights between the two birds can be quite serious, birds who don’t like each other can fight to a point of killing each other.
If the birds start to fight then you may need to separate the birds keeping them in different cages, or, you may need to give one away and swap it in for another bird.
If the female doesn’t like the male then you would need to find someone else for her to mate with as she doesn’t see the male as good enough to mate with.
The female is too young:
If your birds are not ready to mate then they won’t mate.
Budgies need to be at least a year old for them to breed, the birds also need to be in good health and have resources available to them.
If the male budgie is ready to mate but the female budgie isn’t ready to mate then she will refuse to mate with him.
What to do:
If one budgie is ready and is in breeding condition and the other bird is not in breeding condition there isn’t much you can do.
Trying to force the birds to mate will likely not work and if the two do mate when the female is too young then she may become egg-bound and this can be fatal.
Suppressed hormones:
Some birds will not mate with each other on purpose and choose to simply be celibate. This is not normal behavior and your birds will do this because their hormones are suppressed.
Rising hormones in your budgies usually result in sexual aggression in your budgies causing the birds to want to mate with each other, but, if the female does not want to mate with the male budgie then her hormones may be suppressed.
What to do:
The opposite of what should be happening with your bird is likely happening with your bird.
If this is what is going on with your pet then, you’d need to take the bird to the vet, or better yet an avian vet, to be checked and examined to find out why your bird’s hormones are not rising but instead are suppressed.
The female is too old:
While these birds can start to breed from a very young age they can’t breed for too long, your budgie female can breed up to 3 years old and your male budgie can breed up to 6 years old.
If your female budgie is being chased by the male budgie to breed she may not want to breed and not let him breed.
What to do:
There isn’t anything you can do to try to get your female budgie to want to breed if she is too old. You would simply need to get a younger female budgie for the male to pair with and breed with.
If you enjoyed this article then you may also be interested in other bird related articles. Here are some articles that you may be interested in: Why Is My Bird Rubbing Its Face On Everything, Why Does My Conure Rub His Beak On The Cage?, Do Female Budgies Hump Things?, Lovebird Rubbing beak On Cage, Why Do Conures Rub Their Beaks On Things?, Parakeets Mating But No Eggs, Do Budgies Like Blankets?, Why Do Parakeets Rub Their Beaks Together?, Budgie Vomiting Undigested Seeds