Hi. I haven’t been on in a while. I still have my five birds, Silver and Emma the cockatiels and budgies Piper, Winter, and Bluebell. Winter is female and is my first female budgie. Sometimes her vent looks pink and swollen. Does anyone know if this is normal? I have made an appt with an avian vet, but the earliest he is available is in a week from now. Sometimes she (Winter) looks listless when it is “swollen” like that, then she gets back to her normal self and the vent retracts to more like the male budgie vent. I hope I am using the right word for this. It’s hard because of lack of availability of avian vets. I would take her in right away if he was available. Any ideas about this?

Is it possible that she is hormonal? I don't know about parrots, but I know that female hummingbirds get a swollen vent when they're ready to breed.

That’s good to know about the humming birds! Winter has laid a couple of eggs over the last month. She has regular mating activity with Piper, who she is bonded to. I was very worried she might be egg bound, but after she seemed to have completely recovered and was eating, drinking, and climbing around, my worries lessened. I have the whole flock on fourteen hours of darkness, except for thirteen and a half when I just can’t wait to see them in the morning.

I have had my birds for about eight years and have never seen two of them share the same swing. Then, three days ago I found Piper and Winter sharing a swing when I uncovered them in the morning. Now, it’s a regular thing. Is the romance getting deeper, and is that stirring up the hormones? I hope that is all it is.

It certainly sounds like they're feeling extra chummy! I can't guarantee that this is why she has a swollen vent, but it sounds like it could be the reason.

Winter went to the vet Saturday. He said she wasn’t egg bound, but was probably very hormonal. He recommended giving her a nest box, so she can comfortably go thru a round of sitting. It took us an hour of traveling each way. When we got home everyone was very happy. I think the vet did a miracle cure on her because she has been active and chipper ever since we got back. Last week I was worried she might be dying.

I am not doing the nest box now. If she lays again, I bought one I can give her. Did I mention that Piper and Bluebell (the male budgies) had been eating her eggs? Maybe she was just sad about that but was so happy to get home again she snapped out of it. I had given her some small white marbles, but she had no interest in them.

A big disruption can sometimes get them out of breeding mode, and the trip to the vet was a big disruption. I'm glad that it worked!

I hope you don't want to have babies, because that would be pretty hard to do with the males eating the eggs. This isn't typical behavior so I'm surprised that they're doing it. If the time ever comes when you want her to go through a cycle of sitting on eggs, you might have to buy some dummy eggs: https://dummyeggs.com/ The boys won't be able to eat those.

I think Winter was laying from the perch. Maybe one of the eggs broke, and that’s how the males got the idea of eating them. The vet thought that, if the eggs were in a nest box, the males would stop eating them.

I can see how they might start picking at a broken egg. Hopefully they won't recognize that a whole egg in a nestbox is the same delicious food. Budgie males don't incubate eggs like male cockatiels do, so having an egg in the nestbox won't give them the urge to sit on it instead of lunching.