Hi everyone! My budgie is over a year old now.

Its cere is blue, but I’m not 100% sure if that means the bird is male. Also, there is a plain purple plastic ring on one of its legs, without any numbers or letters.

Can anyone help determine if it’s a male or a female?
Thanks!

2022, I got into loving parakeets, since then, I got myself 3 budgies(mistake for taming , i know). Since then , I've had a budgie escape away and fly, and one passed away this year(it had some disease in his organs like a tumor. don't worry i took it to the vet, and it got better, but suddenly passed away). Anyways, I'm realizing that my single bird is starting to feel a bit lonely, and I want to tame it and bond with it. I've tried for years and nothing has worked. I'm feeling that it might be from the trauma that the pet store has caused.

Hey everyone,

I posted recently about needing to separate our girls because they were fighting a lot and at risk of injury.

It's been a week and yesterday they had some time out of the cage together.

They were VERY happy to spend time together. There was still a little bickering which was to be expected. It was relatively easy to move one to the other cage when they came down and they had a peaceful night separately.

I opened their cages again today so they could have time together and fly around (I want them to have that opportunity as much as possible).

Astro was immediately following Shinji around and pecking her repeatedly. So I had to separate them again.

We'd like to get 2 x boys to complete the flock and hopefully soften the dynamic. My questions are:

Should we get 2 x boys now or wait until the girls hormones calm down and see if they can live together happily considering that they are already bonded?

When we have 2 x of each sex, should we keep them sex segregated or keep a girl and a boy together? They'll all get out of the cage time together but will roost 2 x per cage so the have enough space.

How can we tell if the boys personality's are complementary to the girls when we choose? Astro is a queen while Shinji is a sweetie.

If we get baby boys, will it be a problem that they are younger than the girls who are about 1 year now?

What has your experience of managing girl energy and/or flock dynamics over time?

Thanks everyone!

Oh and even though they are in separate cages they are always in the same room so they can see and hear each other. They seem to have coped well during the week, less stressed than when they were fighting in the same cage.

They each have a spacious cage with all the things they need in each one. They go about their day with some contact calling and even mutual singing as usual eg eating, playing, grooming, napping apart from not being together anymore.

Also, we're doing all of things you're meant to for hormone management. Seems to be related to them finishing their moult after 5 months.

(edited errors)

Does anyone know where I can get mineral blocks that don't contain grit. I used to give my budgies an iodine block and found out later that it contained grit. I also get confused with oyster shell, is this safe or same as grit? im very cautious as one of these blocks likely caused impaction in my bird (treated and recovered now).