You forgot to mention that you're planning to add more birds to the flock after you move to another state. You could end up with 13 yourself one of these days.

The current situation with the birds (keeping Piper and Emma separate) is a bit hard.

It's difficult:

- giving them separate out of cage time.
- having two cages

If I have Silver and Emma in the same cage am I likely to run into the same problem with them mating?

I am thinking I should rehome one of the birds--either Piper or Emma. I could part with Piper more easily.

If I resign myself to having two cages, perhaps I should get Piper a male budgie friend, and just not let them out very much.

Advice or comments would be appreciated.

If you keep Silver and Emma in the same cage, any mating behavior would depend on how well they like each other and how frisky they're feeling.

I wouldn't make any decisions right now about rehoming birds or getting another. Just wait a while and see if the situation calms down any. It's possible that a few days apart combined with hormone reduction techniques will calm their hormones down enough that they can play together without getting romantic. At least until spring anyway.

Thank you for you comments. I won't take immediate action, but it's helpful to think about what I may need to do. It's hard to imagine Piper calming down. So far he hasn't, and the moment he gets access to her he's trying to mate with her again. He slips out of his cage SO easily. Then it's a drama trying to separate them again.

We've been playing musical cages here. Piper was in the small cage by himself for a couple of days. Then he escaped, and now he and Silver are in the big cage and Emma is in the smaller cage.

There was another egg last night.

With Piper confined to a cage, Emma and Silver are spending more time together--following each other around. They look so lovely perched together on top of the TV or on top of the rocking chair. They are a better-looking couple than Emma and Piper.

Dianne I feel for you, I am having the same problem with Trilly and Frank, and I am at the end of my tether... don't know what to do anymore. Her getting sick again is the worst of all my fears.

It looks like Emma and Trilly have the same biological clock, and they won't give up! Usually Trilly goes back to non-eggy at the beginning of January and I am counting the days... I hope your Emma will stop being so determinate soon too.