Budgies are somewhat different than cockatiels. The male feeds the hen and she does all the incubation. Budgie hens tend to not like having any bedding in the nest, and some breeders put a bowl-shaped bottom in the nest to help keep the eggs together and prevent splay leg in the chicks. I haven't been able to figure out where to buy this accessory though. I've heard that hens often accept bedding better after the babies hatch.

Another difference is that budgie babies are often fed while they're lying on their back. This would be extremely abnormal for a cockatiel, but it's normal for them.

There's lots of great info on budgie breeding on cutelittlebirdiesaviary.com. She posts a lot on TB and breeds handfed english budgies that are soooo super cute. She uses Vision brand plastic breeding boxes that you can get plastic liners for (so you can swap a dirty one out for a cleaned one) and they both have the concave bottom but she also uses shavings as well. Anywho, for anyone who's going to breed budgies, her site seems to have a lot of good info with lots of pictures included.

I am SO glad you posted that. This website has an excellent budgie mutation guide, but the old website address stopped working and I thought the page was defunct. Now I know that they just have a new address.

Yeah, she really knows her stuff. I like that her site is more than just selling her cute little babies. It truly is a hub of great info for breeding budgies and mutations.

Yes......I've stumbled upon her website before and learned a lot! I'll check back there....thanks for the reminder!

2 weeks is not that long to try to find the bird who flew away. Do you post everywhere?

I lost Chipper the same way last May (never found even though we really were looking for him for a long time). Not long ago somebody called me saying that he found a cockatiel back in January. It was March when he called me. He said that the bird was tame and he picked her up easily. Then he just KEPT the bird, and now he is saying it got too loud so he decided to try to find the owner! It was albino cockatiel (not Chipper unfortunately). I just mean that this is what some people do - they keep birds that they found. I hope this is what happened to Chipper.
There were reports that a cockatiel was found not far from us a few days after Chipper got missing. People who found that cockatiel transported him to a local bird store. The bird store knew I was missing a bird and they said that bird didn't look like Chipper (Chipper was a WhitetFace cock). It was suspicious that 2 cockatiels got missing at the same time at the same area, and I came to the store to demand them show me every single bird. HE wasn't there. I even contacted police about this issue. NO luck.
If I could go back, my actions would be different. I think the best way would be to print lots of his pictures (regular cheapest photo prints at Walgreens) with the word LOST and my number. Then to quickly run around the whole neighborhood and leave pictures at the doors. I spent way too much time going around my immediate block and taking to people. There were reports that he was seen by the house where nobody ever opened me a door. Many days later I finally talked to the old lady who lives there and she said she saw Chipper! It was too late and it was so heartbreaking to know that if she talked to me earlier he could be saved! She said he looked blue-ish on the poster she received at her door, it was another problem - lack of good pictures.
Placing the cage on top of the house is also very good idea but needs to be done at the day 1.
Keep at least posting in the social media and CL. Good luck!

Well, after she flew out the window, I left the same window open (with the other birds in their cages). Pretty soon I heard Willow calling to the other cockatiels in my room, and I started to get hope. My 12 yr. old sister heard the cockatiel outside, and even though I told her not to, she went and tried to grab it. She flew away, and now that I think about it she has probably been gone about 3 weeks. The night that she flew away, it got down to 20 degrees so I pretty much lost hope.

In such temperatures, there is no second chance, you're right. I am sorry for your loss of little bird.

She might have been able to survive if she found a warm, sheltered spot. There are such places outdoors and if she was lucky she could find one.

OK so the cockatiels abandoned their eggs after a week for some very strange reason.....and three parakeet chicks have hatched!